


Floor 13: A Final View

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Floor 13 [3]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bondage, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-21
Updated: 2004-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:40:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 52,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a love story across time, space, death, and reality. Spun off the chapter 26 ending of Floor 13: A New View.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Final Appeals

**Author's Note:**

> Red Dwarf characters belong to Grant Naylor. Shayne and JayVee belong to me.
> 
> This story is marked 'Rape/Non-Con' for an attempted sexual assault.

_In some other reality, Shayne probably survived_.

Kochanski knows she's quite possibly gone mad since Shayne died, but today compounds it more. The anniversary -- to the day - of That Day. A month. Thirty days. Over a hundred nappy-changes for the twins. No matter which way she counts it, though, it's still the anniversary of That Day. The day Shayne, rather than going out kicking and screaming, had slipped into a coma at lunchtime and then slipped beyond it that afternoon, unaware even of Kochanski holding her hand and crying.

_I wish..._

What does she wish? The gibbering voices in the back of her head, constantly playing, can't gain control of her or themselves long enough to wish anything. She wishes... she wishes... she really just wishes Shayne had never died, but there's not a lot she can do about that. If there's something else she can do about it, she doesn't know what it is.

_The ship._

'Great,' Kochanski says aloud. 'The ship. You're brilliant.' She gets up, vaguely planning to go downstairs and make herself a nice hot mug of drinking chocolate. 'Care to elaborate on _which_ ship?'

'Kris, what're you rambling about?' Lister catches her at the head of the stairs, arms slipping around her waist from behind, nuzzling his nose against her neck and making her giggle.

'Oh, some voice in my head's saying _The ship_, but not _which_ ship,' Kochanski says. She turns in his arms. 'Hug?'

Lister embraces her closely, sensing her seriousness, stroking her hair. 'How're you coping?'

'Fine, fine,' Kochanski says. She isn't. 'Just... lonely, I guess.' She is, but it's more than that.

Lister holds her at arms' length, looks at her critically. 'Want me to kick ole Ace out of bed? You can come snuggle with me tonight, if you want.'

Kochanski shakes her head. 'No, I'll be fine. It wouldn't be right... tonight, at least. And I can't believe you actually call him _Ace_.'

'It's not all the time,' Lister says. 'Just... something that's not habit. What's a word for something you do sometimes that's not habit but's not just a one-off?'

'"Rare"?' Kochanski suggests. '_Ace_... hell, Dave, in my universe he was lucky if you called him _Rimmer_, let alone _Ace_.'

_The ship_.

'Oh, for God's sake! _What_ ship?' Kochanski almost screams.

And then...

_Ace_

_my universe_

_the ship_

_Shayne_

'Oh, God,' Kochanski says.

'What? What is it?' Lister clearly thinks she's gone mad.

'I know what ship.' Her eyes are sane... too sane. 'I know what ship they mean.'

'What ship? What're you talking about?'

Kochanski closes her eyes. Connects the dots. '_Wildfire_,' she breathes.

'What?'

Opens her eyes. 'The ship. _Wildfire_. Dimension jumping capabilities. Don't you see, Dave? If we go back and find it, maybe Shayne's alive in another dimension!'

Lister begins to see her point. 'And you think you could go and get her?'

Kochanski nods eagerly. 'Or better -- we could go and find the ship and see if we could upgrade _Starbug_ to do the same thing! That way we wouldn't need to split up, or worry about me not finding the right dimension again on the way back.'

'It's a good idea, Kris. Why don't we get everyone together and we'll discuss it?'

'What's to discuss? It's a _great_ idea! I'll tell Kryten to start preparing the deep-sleep units -- we'd be better off in them for a month rather than just travelling alive all that time.' Kochanski grins. 'I know I'd go mad waiting that long!' She bounces down the stairs. Lister moves to follow her, but a hand catches his arm.

'I heard raised voices. What's happening?' Rimmer asks.

'Kris thinks we can go back and find that abandoned _Wildfire_ and use its dimension jumping capabilities to find a dimension where Shayne's alive,' Lister says.

'Oh,' Rimmer says. 'Well.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'She does know it won't be the same as having her back, right?'

'I don't think she cares.' Lister rubs his closed eyes with the palms of his hands. Opens his eyes, looks at Rimmer. 'Do you think we should humour her, or what?'

'What harm can it do? Lister, sooner or later we'd have to make some huge upgrades to the ship, if you still want to get back to Earth. There's no way we'd make it in any of our lifetimes... I think this ship might ultimately be slower than _Red Dwarf_, even,' Rimmer adds, 'and if it took three million years to get out here, then it might take four to get back.'

'Why would _Starbug_ be slower? It's smaller,' Lister says.

'Think about the trouble we've had with fuel, stopping all those times at derelicts, not to mention that our Navicomp's a hundredth the size of _Red Dwarf_'s, so we often don't see asteroid fields until we're on the other side of them. There are a lot of things that we have to go around. _Red Dwarf_, being a lot bigger, goes _through_ them.'

'You have a point.'

'For you? Always.'

Lister sighs, giggles, and kisses his lover. Rimmer kisses him back, fingers coming through the silky ponytail Lister has managed to keep his hair in, and more might happen, but...

'_Dave_!'

'We'd better go down,' Lister says, reluctantly breaking the kiss.

'That's what I was hoping,' Rimmer says.

'Later. We need to talk to her.'

* * *

The midsection of _Starbug_ has been turned into something closely resembling a bomb blast site in a Toys 'R' Us. Random teddy bears -- each missing a limb or an eye or an ear - decorate the floor. At one month, JayVee swears the twins can already talk and their favourite word is 'Want!'.

Sitting in the midst of the mess, JayVee feeds Leah, talking softly to her baby girl. Liam is asleep on his bunny blanket in the middle of the scanner table.

'Ma'am, I'll help you clean up in here this afternoon,' Kryten says. This is a progression from, 'Ma'am, it's getting messy' (three days ago), to 'Ma'am, don't you think three teddies at once is a little much?' (two days ago, and the response was a bemused look and a, 'No, of course not!' as Liam dribbled into her cleavage), to 'Ma'am, the midsection looks like a bomb went off in a toy store' (yesterday).

JayVee looks up, a little dazed from lack of sleep. 'Would you, Kryte? Oh, you're an angel.' The sound of feet on the stairs catches her attention, and she smiles. 'And here comes my other angel. How did you sleep, Krissie?'

'All right. Jayv...'

'I just wanted to thank you again and apologise, I know Liam gets so fussy some nights, and in these living conditions it's impossible to ignore.'

'Jayv...'

'I actually thought maybe next time we stop we'd be able to find something to use for soundproofing on the nursery door, what do you think?'

'Glue the teddy bears to it,' Kochanski says. 'Jayv, I think I know how I can get Shayne back.'

JayVee's mouth hangs open, at least until Leah carefully inserts a chubby fist into it and tries to grab her tongue.

'You what?'

'Think I can get Shayne back. We'd have to turn _Starbug_ around, of course, and go into deep sleep or something for a month, but I think it could work!'

JayVee regards Kochanski with a somewhat quizzical expression. 'Kris, you're serious aren't you? I thought you were happy with the way things are?'

Kochanski sighs, sits down, and scoops Liam into her arms without waking him. 'I am happy, Jayv, really I am. But if it's possible... and if she'd come with us...' There is something in Kochanski's blue eyes that JayVee has seen only rarely over the past month. 'Can you imagine? We'd all be together again!'

'Kris, start over.'

'_Wildfire_,' Kochanski says, by way of an explanation.

Lister and Rimmer come down the stairs and JayVee looks up at Lister, her eyebrows raised. 'Dave, care to explain to me what Krissie's on about? _Wildfire_... deep sleep...'

'Miss Kochanski?' Even Kryten looks quizzical.

'Look, I know it's a long shot, but I think we might be able to turn _Starbug_ around, find the _Wildfire_ we left behind, and use its technology to dimension jump. We can find a dimension where Shayne survived, and maybe I can persuade her to come with us,' Kochanski explains slightly more coherently.

'One problem...' Lister says, coming straight to the point.

'Only one?' JayVee says under her breath.

'If it's a dimension where Shayne survived her... you know... then don't you think the Kochanski in that dimension might be a little bit annoyed if you try to take her away?'

Kochanski pauses for exactly three seconds, according to Kryten's count.

'Then we'll find a dimension where she's alive but not taken.'

From time to time, otherwise perfectly rational individuals seem to go a little crazy. The trick is, observers can only discern this from their usual state by paying close attention, for they speak with the perfect logic of someone who knows they are right, and knows that they will win any argument. At this point in the conversation, Lister and the others realise that Kochanski, refuted, will be very... the best word is 'homicidal'.

'Sure, okay,' Lister says. 'Someone tell the Cat. Kryters, get the deep sleep units ready. Rimmer...'

'Yes?'

'Um...'

'Oh,' says Rimmer, following Lister upstairs, because it's all very well to postpone certain things for a few minutes, but not for a whole _month_.

* * *

They regroup at the deep sleep units some time later. Kryten persuades JayVee that, for one thing, the units will be perfectly safe for the babies, and for another thing, it doesn't really matter how many teddy bears they cram in. Finally, the Cat, JayVee, and the twins settle into one of the two units, and Lister and Rimmer, exchanging winks and lecherous grins, snuggle into the other.

'Wake us when we reach _Wildfire_,' Kochanski says to Kryten for the third time. 'But if you need us before then...'

'Yes, ma'am.' Kryten, like Lister, knows not to argue with humans when they are in this state of mind. 'Is there anything else before you get in?' He is hovering by the button that activates the deep sleep units, waiting for Kochanski to make up her mind.

Kochanski looks around, then shakes her head. 'See you in a month, then.' She crawls into the second unit with Lister and Rimmer, who each put an arm around her to keep her from rolling out. The units really are remarkably small, after all.

'In a month,' says Kryten, then presses the button.


	2. Final Appeals

After a day or two of aimless tinkering with the _Wildfire_'s drives when they finally catch up with it, Kryten is forced to admit that he doesn't know exactly how it works, and can't upgrade _Starbug_ to make it jump dimensions.

Kochanski spends a few hours with the ship before deciding to agree with him.

_Wildfire_ is a fairly streamlined craft, outward appearance something like a child's toy, but inside all professionalism in the form of many consoles. There's a pilot's seat, a crawlspace behind it back to a small bedroom-ish area, and a storage space behind that with a packet of freezedried tuna and three cartons of long-life milk. All this translates to one thing: pilot only. Visitors stay out. Except that the bed looks big enough for two, but given Ace's reputation, this probably isn't such a strange thing.

She almost wishes she had someone to share the bed with, but thinks this will be easier on her own.

Nobody else on the ship eats tinned peaches. JayVee says they look like ovaries in syrup. Kochanski takes advantage of this disdain to supplement the meagre supplies in _Wildfire_ with a crate of tins. She spends another few hours in the cargo bay choosing things carefully. Pasta, tinned tomatoes, freeze-dried vegetables -- all the things Lister won't use and the others probably won't use much of. A block of astro icecream -- guiltily, since she doesn't think JayVee even knows about it. And all the time she is doing this, she is trying not to think about why.

The feelings inside her are excitement and fear.

* * *

'I thought you said you couldn't figure it out,' Lister says.

The gantry overlooking the landing bay is cold, and the grating leaves Kochanski's backside feeling decidedly odd. 'Kryten and I couldn't figure out how to convert _Starbug_'s engines to the _Wildfire_'s specifications. But I've been looking at the controls, and I think I can see how to fly it.'

Lister lights a cigarette, the tip bobbing orangely in the mostly darkness of the landing bay. 'What happens if you find her?'

'I'll come back here.'

'How will you find your way back?'

'The computer says it's simple enough: if I give this dimension a number, I can programme her to return here.'

'Her?'

'The computer. Her name's Sasha.'

'Why am I not surprised that Ace's computer is female?' Lister says. 'Can I ask you one other thing?'

'What?'

'D'you really think this will work? How long are you planning to look? When does it get to a point where you have to give up?'

'That's three questions, not one.'

'Anyway...'

'Yes, I think it will work,' Kochanski says. 'I plan to look for a year and then come home. If I haven't found her in a year, I probably won't. And... I don't know. Even if I have to come back here empty-handed, I don't think I'll ever really give up.'

Lister blows smoke into the air. Rimmer doesn't like it, but smoking is Lister's way of contemplating his navel and chanting Om. He does it very little. 'Kris, I think you're mad, but what can I say? You have my blessing. Do whatever it is you think you have to.'

Kochanski puts her hand over his free hand and they sit there like that for a while, looking down at _Wildfire_, which waits patiently in the shadows below them.

* * *

She catches Rimmer when he's washing dishes in the galley, having persuaded Kryten to let him do it for once. Boredom levels on _Starbug_ are approaching dangerous heights, such that even housework is a welcome relief at times.

'What do you think, then?'

Rimmer barely hesitates. 'I think Listy's right and you should do what you want to do,' he says. 'If it's what makes you happy, then you should do it.'

Kochanski looks at him, seeing not the petty-minded man she knew back on _Red Dwarf_, but Lister's lover, someone it is actually possible to like, and smiles. She picks up a tea towel and begins wiping the dishes already in the drainer. 'Would you do this if it was him?' she asks.

'I'd try. I'd probably bugger it up, but I'd try.'

The word 'bugger' reminds Kochanski of an ill-fated experiment of JayVee's some time ago, and she snickers.

'What?'

'Oh, just this... um... something Jayv said.'

Rimmer looks down at her, then flicks water at her, making certain connections. 'I suppose JayVee has an excessive interest in my nocturnal activities with Lister.'

'Please!' Kochanski says.

'She does, doesn't she?'

'Er...'

'You can admit it, I won't tell anyone,' Rimmer says.

'Oh, she told enough people all by herself without you needing to spread rumours.' Curiosity is tickling Kochanski's own mind, but she keeps it to herself. 'She went so far as to... um... go so far. With the Cat.'

Rimmer stifles what might otherwise have been a loud cackle. 'I'll bet it didn't do much for her.'

'She said not. How do you know?'

'There are differences between men and women,' Rimmer says almost primly. 'The only way to know what it's like for a man is to be one.'

'If Shayne were here she'd ask you how you knew, then,' Kochanski says.

Rimmer flicks some more water at her. 'No brooding in the galley. When are you leaving?'

'The galley?'

'No, the ship.'

'Probably Thursday.'

'Why Thursday?'

'Why not?'

'When is Thursday, anyway?' Rimmer asks. 'It's been ages since I've seen a calendar that wasn't either three million years out of date or had two extra months.'

'It's in three days, according to Kryten,' Kochanski says. 'I'm trusting him, since he's the best reference we've got.'

'Only because we don't have enough fingers to count all those days.'

Kochanski splashes in the sink with a wooden spoon, and Rimmer jumps back, spluttering, before stealing Kochanski's tea towel and dunking it in the water...

* * *

Once she has dried herself off, Kochanski finds JayVee in the cockpit -- alone, for a wonder. The Cat, JayVee informs her, is upstairs with the twins.

'What do _you_ think?'

'I think if you find that Planet of the Nymphomaniacs that Dave mentioned, you should bring me and Cat back one or two.'

'Very funny.'

JayVee is listening to Alanis Morissette and rereading _Fight Club_; her feet are up on the console and she looks very relaxed for a young mother of twins. But she graciously allows Kochanski some time.

'Do you think I'm doing the right thing?'

'Kris, I think the question is do _you_ think you're doing the right thing?'

'I _think_ I think I'm doing the right thing.'

'Good. 'Cos this could go on all day. How long are you going for? A year? That's fair enough. I promise we'll be here when you come home, too.' JayVee pats Kochanski's hand. Kochanski appreciates the gesture and ignores the fact that JayVee's hand is slightly sticky.

'I hope so. The thing is, because you and Shayne were - are -- whatever -- such good friends, I've asked Sasha to find alternate versions of you, instead of alternate versions of Rimmer.'

'Sasha?'

'_Wildfire_'s computer.'

'Oh, I thought as much,' JayVee says. 'That's a good idea. Can she do that?'

'She's smart,' Kochanski says. 'And she seems to like me. She's just a little hysterically obsessed with Ace, that's all, and since he's gone...'

'Maybe you'll find another version of Ace for her.'

'Maybe so.'

JayVee looks at Kochanski without saying anything for a long time, then reaches out. Kochanski goes to her and they hug, closely, for an even longer time. With all they've come through, from Shayne apparently ditching JayVee for Kochanski, to Shayne's death, the bond between them has only strengthened.

'I'll miss you, Krissie,' JayVee says into Kochanski's hair.

'I'll miss you too, Jayv.' Kochanski rests her head on JayVee's shoulder. 'I'll miss everyone. But I'll miss her more if I don't go.'

'It won't be the same.'

'You've all been saying that,' Kochanski says.

'It's true, though, and we're just trying to prepare you for the worst... you might never make this work, you know.' Kochanski opens her mouth, maybe to protest, but JayVee presses a finger against her lips. 'Hear me out. This might all go arseways. Anything might happen. You might never see her again, in any way. But you've always got us to come home to.' She kisses Kochanski's cheek. 'We all love you, even the kids.'

'I know, Jayv. I know.'

The moment is interrupted by an aggrieved shriek from upstairs - JayVee makes a panicked bolt for the stairs, and Kochanski follows her, hoping that wasn't really the Cat, hoping it wasn't one of the children either.

The Cat is standing in the middle of the family's room, a giggling child in his arms, and a huge smear of milk -- presumably someone's lunch -- all down one sleeve of his personally hand-stitched green velvet jacket.

'Leah spat up on me,' he says as if he's about to pass out from the knowledge.

'Give.' JayVee scoops her daughter from the Cat's arms, while Kochanski grabs the baby wipes and starts dabbing futilely at the jacket. The Cat just stands there, looking dazed, and occasionally muttering something that sounds suspiciously anti-baby under his breath.

''Smatter, Cat?' Kochanski asks, smirking, but with the sneaking suspicion that the milk's not going to wash out all that easily.

'There's a time and a place for breast milk,' the Cat says, his face alternating between red and greenish. 'It don't usually involve being all over me.'

'There, there,' JayVee says to Leah, who seems utterly unconcerned with the whole event. 'Did Daddy's face make you want to barf? Perfectly understandable.' A great big lie, of course; Jayv loves the Cat's face. And head. And body. And... other head. Kochanski halts this train of thought firmly in its tracks before it can go so much as one station further.

* * *

And then Thursday comes and it's time for her to leave. She thinks she's got the hang of the controls -- tertiary, secondary, primary ignition, that's easy enough, and then only two dozen or so different readouts. Sasha, far from being indignant that she isn't Ace, seems happy enough to help her out. Sasha is blonde and blue-eyed and promises not to flirt unless Kochanski wants her to.

Kochanski somehow doesn't think that scenario will present itself.

'See you later,' she says to everyone instead of, 'Goodbye'. 'Goodbye' is too much of an ending. She hopes to be back on this spot, here in _Starbug_, in a year's time. She hopes to be accompanied when she is, as well.

After hugs, everyone retreats to give the _Wildfire_ the maximum launch space possible. Sasha's voice, magnified by the ship's tiny PA system, echoes around the bay.

'Zero minus thirty and counting. Engage tertiary ignition.'

'Engaged,' Kochanski says. She puts on her oxygen mask, essential only for during the launch, Sasha has told her. Sasha's lips are moving, counting down silently.

'Zero minus twenty.'

'Zero minus fifteen,' she adds five seconds later, and Kochanski fires the secondary ignition without needing to be told, hearing the whining of the engines slip up a gear. Usually, learning to pilot a craft like this would take years, but with Kochanski's slapdash experience of the last few years, Sasha has deemed her capable enough to push a few buttons. 'Just think of it as a video game,' she has advised, and Kochanski, gloved hands on the steering yoke, tries to do so.

'See you later,' she calls again into the microphone, seeing Lister and Rimmer vaguely in her peripheral vision but unwilling to lose her focus. They are clinging onto the railing as the bay doors open.

'Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Primary,' Sasha interrupts herself, and Kochanski pushes the button. The engines are whining louder now. 'Four. Three. Two. One.' Sasha pauses. 'Zero.'

_Wildfire_'s boosters fire; the red ship scuds forward into space, through the open doorway, which begins closing almost immediately. But before it does, Lister and the rest of the watching crew see the ship disappear from view. Not behind a planet, not too far away to see, just gone.

JayVee exhales shakily. 'Better get back to the kids,' she says, whether to herself or someone else, nobody knows.

They file back into the main body of the ship, and the waiting begins.


	3. Final Challenges

Jumping dimensions _hurts_.

Kochanski comes out of the starry blackness into bright light and Sasha's voice. For a minute she's back with Shayne and Shayne's hand is on her arm, Shayne's fingers are on her cheek, asking if she's all right, is she all right, Krissie, are you...

'...all right? Krissie?'

'Mrrr,' Kochanski says intelligently. She clears her throat. 'Sasha?'

'Good.' The computer sounds businesslike. 'It often takes people like that the first time. Have a good breathe of your oxygen, you'll soon be right.'

'Does this happen every time?' Kochanski asks after sucking greedily on the oxygen provided by the mask.

'Not if you brace for it,' Sasha says.

'Then why didn't you tell me to brace for it?'

'You can't brace for it unless you know what you're bracing for. Remember just before we crossed over, how the tear opened up?' Kochanski nods. 'That's when you have to brace.'

Kochanski looks at the readouts in front of her, giving up on Sasha's logic. 'Where are we?'

'Ninety-one miles away from the _Red Dwarf_,' Sasha replies. 'Which is where I do believe you'll find what you're looking for.'

Kochanski knows better than to start hoping now, but a spark is burning within her. She finds the oxygeneration unit readout and sees that the unit is working perfectly; when she takes off her oxygen mask, it comes away with a sucking noise and a dribble of sweat. 'If Mum and Dad could see me now, they'd be surprised,' she says.

'So would you, since they'd be three million years old.'

'_Thank _you for that mental image, Sasha.'

The great red bulk of their destination isn't hard to spot when Kochanski looks around, and she aims _Wildfire _at it, with Sasha's help. Ninety-one miles is nothing to the dimension jumping craft, and soon the radio crackles.

'Ground Control to unidentified craft, please identify yourself.' Some bored middle-aged woman, no doubt mildly irritated at the interruption to her knitting.

'This is Navigation Officer Kristine Kochanski in the space vehicle _Wildfire _. I am unaccompanied and wish to board your vessel.'

The voice, when it responds, no longer sounds bored. 'Kochanski, eh? How can you be out there in that ship and in here as well? Land by all means, you've got some explaining to do, missy.'

Kochanski hopes that doesn't mean anything bad and lets Sasha fly them into the open landing bay. It looks exactly like her _Red Dwarf_, like all her _Red Dwarf_s for that matter -- home universe or otherwise. Even the quarantine processing area is identical. As she moves through it, being briefly blasted with decon spray and then dried off by huge, softly whirring fans, she feels a strong pang of homesickness that even this sister ship cannot entirely quell.

Waiting for her on the other end of the processing area is Lister.

'Dave! Hi,' Kochanski says, profoundly relieved.

'Kochanski.' His eyes pass briefly over her badge of rank -- for this quest, she has elected to start out wearing uniform. 'Where'd you get the badge? Some Console Officer's not going to be too happy about that. _And _you've dyed your hair.'

'Don't you know who I am?' Kochanski asks.

'Listen,' Lister says, his voice dropping to a whisper. She notes the black-uniformed guards behind him as he grabs her wrist and pulls her closer. 'It was just a fling, okay? Don't think that I'm going to use my position to get you out of this one. You've screwed up enough times.'

Kochanski wants to ask _What _and _Huh _and _Why _and _You bastard, is what we had just a 'fling'_? She gets as far as, 'But...' before Lister releases her wrist. 'Guards.' His tone is flat. 'Take her down to the Brig. Solitary, until we can determine the nature of her crime and a suitable punishment.'

'Yes, sir,' says one of the guards. The other reaches out and takes Kochanski's arm, considerably less gentle than Lister. She tries to pull it away, but the guard is strong. Past her, Kochanski sees Lister walking away.

'Dave!'

He doesn't look back.

'_Dave_!'

* * *

Solitary confinement in this version of the Brig is also called the Hole. Kochanski sits in the darkness and thinks.

Obviously, just waltzing up to any old ship she sees and introducing herself isn't going to work. The reaction she's had so far convinces her of this. So, one of the things she needs to do is come up with another identity, one that will allow her to travel safely. However, this will have to wait until she gets the hell out of the Brig.

The door opens. It's the guard who grabbed her earlier, with her meal -- dinner? supper? It could be either. Despite the decision she has made, Kochanski decides for one last try.

'I'm sorry, but this has all been a mistake.' She tries a winning smile, knowing that it is probably mostly wasted in the darkness. 'My name's Kristine Kochanski, and...'

'Shut up.'

Kochanski's brain yammers. Her heart pounds.

'I'm from a parallel dimension, and...'

'I told ya, shut up, or I'm goin' t' take this back again.' The guard bends forward to place the tray on the ground, and in the light Kochanski sees her nametag, her face, her hair, so painfully familiar, so...

But even without the light, she knows the voice. That voice that once made plans to escape from the Brig like this one; that voice that used to read aloud Bible passages on Sunday afternoons, low and commanding; that voice, her voice, that used to follow Kochanski down into the sweetest sleeps and sing in her dreams.

* * *

After eating -- undercooked rice, mushy peas, and what is probably supposed to be curried chicken but looks more like Leah's recycled milk -- Kochanski leans back against the wall and tries to formulate a plan, namely, the Get Me The Hell Out Of Here plan. She doesn't have a time wand or a convenient skutter or even a dinosaur to stomp everyone with. She already knows that the guard -- _Shayne a prison guard, the very idea_, says her brain -- is not who she's looking for. But even if she were, their escape would be difficult.

She hasn't got a plan for this situation. Thinking back over what Lister said, she remembers something about staying here until her sentencing, in which case she might end up in a more open cell. One it might be easy to get out of. Not this poky little hole that smells funny -- like old prison meals have gone bad here. It reminds her of her first encounter with _Starbug_. God, Dave in that ridiculous outfit... the memory makes her giggle, which is good.

Maybe waiting will be the best method. Maybe. Maybe she doesn't have a choice. After making one circuit of the cell she already knows that the door and walls are solid, that there are no loose panels in the low ceiling, and that the floor is one single sheet of metal, impenetrable, crackless.

Keys rattle in the door and Kochanski's head snaps up from looking at her feet, hoping at least to get another look at this universe's Shayne, to feast her eyes on the face she misses so much. But it's not Shayne.

It's still a familiar face, though.

'Jayv?' Kochanski says.

The guard, reaching for Kochanski's empty meal tray, pauses. 'How'd you know my name? We never worked together, did we?' The frank violet eyes meet Kochanski's. They are puzzled eyes, a very familiar expression for JayVee, who is frequently a few steps behind everyone else.

'Have you got a minute to talk?' Kochanski grasps at straws.

'I'm not really supposed to...' Kochanski feels the straws slipping through her fingers.

'Please?'

The guard sighs and closes the door behind herself, replacing the keyring on her belt, next to her sidearm. 'Okay, you're all alone, I'll give you a few minutes.'

Kochanski smiles, and begins constructing something with her straws.

* * *

An hour and a half later, she's finally getting to the point of the matter. JayVee is sitting crosslegged, leaning back against the door, enthralled by Kochanski's story.

'You want me to help get you out?' she asks when Kochanski has brought her up to date, although Kochanski hasn't asked for any such assistance.

'Would you?' Kochanski says. 'In my dimension, you were the mastermind of a lot of the plan.' She smiles. 'You knew your way around.'

'Still do,' JayVee says. 'Is this 'your dimension' the one you came from first? No, it's the one you moved to. You think of them both as 'your dimension', don't you?'

'I think I think of the new one as my dimension more,' Kochanski admits. 'I'm losing touch with the past.'

'Best way,' JayVee says. Kochanski wonders what decisions led JayVee this way instead of the other way. 'I feel kind of responsible for you. You know, because of what you said to this other me. The locking on to versions of me. You're right about Shayne. I've known her for years.'

'Is she -- does she--' Kochanski can't finish the sentence, knows it's a stupid question, but JayVee understands and nods.

'Sorry. She's taken.'

'Who by?'

JayVee winces. 'Some guy.'

'A _guy_? That doesn't sound anything like Shayne.'

'I was surprised too,' JayVee says. 'It was when we got the transfer to the ship from the prison on... bloody hell, what's the name? One of the moons, Neptune... fuck it, I can't remember. Big prison. Anyway, we got transferred, they put us on some rota thing so that people weren't assigned to any one place for too long. It was meant to be so that prisoners couldn't form attachments to any one guard and maybe use them to escape, but it was worse for us, never knowing where we'd be shipped off to next.' She laughs. 'Makes me feel a bit better about helping you.' She has forgotten the original direction of her sentence, but Kochanski doesn't mind. She'd rather that JayVee not talk about Shayne any more right now.

'So you want to help?'

'I offered, didn't I?' JayVee stretches and yawns - it's getting late. 'There's another version of you on board here right?'

'I think so. Lister mentioned her earlier.'

'Lister? First Officer Lister?'

'Oh God,' Kochanski groans. 'That's just great.'

'Anyway,' JayVee says, 'all I have to do is point out to the proper authorities that you're not this Kochanski, and they'll drop the charges. You're a different Kochanski, you have a ship we've never seen before, and you can fly it. They've got nothing on you. I should be able to have a word in a few higher-up ears, and you shouldn't be here more than a week.'

A week is okay. A week she can handle. 'Sure, okay.'

JayVee shuffles towards the door, legs complaining from sitting so long. She pauses at the door, key in the lock. 'Look, don't mention this to anyone who comes, okay? I could get in serious trouble, wind up in here with you, if they find out that I'm helping you.'

'At least I'd have company.'

JayVee laughs. 'I'll take all Shayne's shifts from now on. You've already freaked her out so much she'll agree easily. I'll see you sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, get some rest.' She produces two thick blankets and a pillow from outside the cell door and passes them to Kochanski, who takes them gratefully. 'Be good.' The door bangs shut behind her, and Kochanski curls up in the darkness. Sleep comes easily, hope and optimism buoying her up even as fatigue and tiredness weigh her down.


	4. Final Disappointments

The Captain leans back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto his desk, and looks smug. Kochanski's torn between throwing a paperweight at him and her own incredulity at who he is.

'Miss Kochanski -- both of you -- I find all this a little hard to swallow.'

Great. _Now_ she's torn between a sharp retort and some stupid joke about swallowing. 'Captain Rimmer, I understand your position. But surely it's obvious that I am not the Kochanski from this dimension.' She inclines her head at her counterpart, a vacuous blonde who is chewing gum and seems to have not the slightest idea why she's here. 'We're completely unalike, can't you see that?'

'I can indeed.' His eyes roam her body, clearly approving far more of her than of her double. 'But the fact remains that under the guidelines set out by Space Corps Directive twelve, subsections a, b _and_ c, mutiny by any crewmember is punishable by two years in either the Brig, or in stasis with suspended pay for the duration.'

Who knew a nostril flare could be so superior? 'I'm not a member of your crew, Sir.'

Captain Rimmer clears his throat, preparing for the final kill. 'Yes, but you are -- or claim to be -- a Space Corps employee, true?'

'Yessir.'

'And you claim to be in the employ of the Jupiter Mining Corporation as a Console Officer, said position also known as Navigation Officer?'

'Yessir.' When did he swallow the Space Corps Manual?

'Then you've hanged yourself by your own rope! Regardless of your dimension of origin -- a story I still find very hard to believe -- you are an employee under _my_ jurisdiction, and so _I_ have the power of veto. You have still stolen a Space Corps ship clearly not assigned to you. However, I think two years in the Brig is a little harsh under the circumstances. Six months will do. After that period is up, you can work for me on my ship. I think that's more than fair, considering you're apparently delusional. Speaking of which, I'll have the ship's psychologist check you out. Officer Vaughan, take Miss Kochanski - the 'dimension-jumping' one' -- the cretin actually makes the quotation marks with his fingers -- 'down to the psychiatric office and have Officer Selby check her out.'

JayVee looks ready to rip his head off and use it as a basketball in the next prison tournament. Kochanski, on the other hand, is managing to contain her anger.

'Sir?'

'Yes?' The Captain looks like he's already dismissed her.

'Nothing,' Kochanski says. However, she does manage to 'accidentally' knock against his desk as she rises, throwing him off balance and sending him crashing to the floor. It gives her some small mean pleasure.

* * *

'It's not so bad, really,' JayVee says as Kochanski emerges from the psychiatrist's office, where Lister's old friend Selby has diagnosed her as 'possibly delusional, definitely schizophrenic'. 'Play up the nutter angle. You'll get single quarters and that'll make it easier to bust you out.'

Kochanski blinks at her. 'You still want to help me? Even after all that rubbish?'

'Course.' JayVee tucks her arm companionably through Kochanski's and begins leading her towards the lifts. 'I've never seen anyone so desperate to chase down their one true love. It'd make a good book. A love story across time and space. I think you're bloody amazing.'

'Not just desperate then?'

'Well,' JayVee admits, 'it is a little insane, especially to that lot.' She means anyone in authority. 'But I'll have you out. Hopefully before the Captain decides to come down for a visit to see how you're going.' They reach the lift and JayVee presses a button. 'I don't like the way he was staring at you.'

The thought revolts Kochanski. 'You mean he might...'

'Damn straight he might,' JayVee says. The lift arrives and they step in, and conversation halts for a moment as JayVee fiddles with the special access key. 'I don't think he's ever done anything before. But you're not officially here, and no matter what he says about you being a JMC employee, that doesn't make you on the payroll. Which means you can't complain about mistreatment. And the nutter thing makes it even riskier, 'cause that lot'll say you're making it up.'

'God.' Kochanski shudders. Rimmer -- dear Rimmer, the man she knows as one hopelessly in love with Lister, who would never hurt a fly, clich as it might sound -- she just can't imagine him as the type to come sneaking into a woman's room at night, perhaps telling her to keep quiet, perhaps... Kochanski slaps her own forehead, trying to drive the image away. JayVee sees her distress and opens her arms, and Kochanski lets JayVee hold her.

'Right,' Jayv murmurs against Kochanski's hair a moment later. 'We're almost there, so I'll have to let you go. If they see us together too often they'll suss it out, so I'll have to stick to straight shifts, not fiddling times too much. Shayne might come to you. If she does, don't talk about your quest. God knows what kind of trouble that might cause.'

Kochanski understands.

* * *

After the new-intake speech -- Kochanski keeps her head down and doesn't meet the eyes of the man whom in her dimension was Kill Crazy; she's too afraid she'll cry -- she is given a pink uniform and the basic toiletries and directed to a single-berth cell quite close to the guards' station. A discreet sign beside the door states her name and the word 'Psych'. Kochanski goes into her cell and puts her uniform on, passing her normal clothes out to JayVee, who stands outside the door and looks away considerately.

'We haven't had any Psych women here,' JayVee says when Kochanski is back in pink. 'It's only been men who've been Psyched. I might be able to get into your ship if I tell them you asked for something from there and started going nuts when I said I couldn't get it. I'll put your clothes in there so we don't have to pick them up on your way out.'

Kochanski looks despondently at her JMC-issue soap, turning it over and over in her hands. 'Are you sure you can get me out?'

JayVee recognises her emotion. 'Yes.' She pauses. 'Yes, I am. I haven't got the whole idea, but you need to be prepared. If I grab your arm and tell you to run, you bloody well do it. Most likely I'll get you at night. You can fake a fit and I can take you to the Hole, except I'll really get you out.' The corridor is deserted; they are speaking in normal voices.

'So what about you? Won't they find out that you've aided and abetted me? Or whatever it's called?'

'Don't worry about me.'

'You can't come with me. That ship's not big enough for two. I still don't know how I'm going to get Shayne home in it.'

'From the sounds of it, you won't mind the tight fit.' JayVee laughs. 'I've got to lock you in now. You'll be put on duty roster in a couple of days, after the settling-in time and when that idiot Selby's made sure you're not actually a danger to anyone.' She appraises Kochanski's appearance, taking in her slim frame, her dark eyes making her look fragile, big in her pale face. 'Mind you, you don't look like a danger to anything bigger than a mashed potato.'

'I could _murder_ a mashed potato.' Kochanski's stomach rumbles.

'I'll make sure you get proper food.' JayVee pulls the key out again, gestures Kochanski back, and locks the door. Then, without a further word, she's gone.

* * *

For the next couple of days Kochanski sits in her cell and reads books or eats. There isn't anything else to do. The books are whatever JayVee can find in the guards' station, and so Kochanski is working her way through _The Shawshank Redemption_ when her cell door finally opens on the third morning.

'Mornin',' Shayne says. Kochanski's heart twitches. 'Ya on laundry duty.' She gives Kochanski a level look. 'Ya gonna behave?'

'Of course,' Kochanski says. 'What did you think, that I'd try and kill everyone?' She puts the book down and gets up.

'It's been known t' happen,' Shayne says. 'This way.' Kochanski lets Shayne lead her, although she knows the way perfectly well: down the corridor, along the thin walkway, into the Floor 13 central lift, and down to the laundry level. The laundry level is split in two: one side for the laundry, the other side for the dining hall. She always feels like she will fall off the walkway, handrail or no handrail, the way it is suspended in space, delicate as a strand of spiderweb.

'So who tried to kill everyone?'

'Never ya mind.'

This Shayne seems to feel no need for conversation, no need to talk. Kochanski contents herself with looking at Shayne's hair, longer here than back home, tied in a perfectly made braid. Her boyfriend, whoever he is -- JayVee never gave her a name - probably likes her to look neat and tidy. Kochanski always preferred her tousled, her hair a mess on the pillow, her eyes blinking and sleepy and beautiful, and if she doesn't derail this train of thought she'll be crying, so she administers a sharp pinch to her forearm.

They arrive at the laundry room. Kochanski seems to be the only one down here, but then she sees a redheaded woman kicking one of the dryers. Shayne shouts something and the woman leaves off, and then Shayne leaves the pair of them to get on with it while she goes to find out where the rest of the laundry duty shift are.

'Hi,' says the woman. 'Who're you? You're not usually on this shift.'

'My name's Kochanski. Kristine Kochanski. I'm not usually in this dimension either, but it just happened.' Five seconds into her shift and she's already blown her cover. Brilliant.

'Ah.' The woman doesn't look surprised or shocked, merely understanding. 'I'm Felicia Fortune. What're you in for?'

'Being from another dimension and apparently stealing a Space Corps ship. It's a little complicated. You?'

'Drunk and disorderly. I've served six weeks of an eight-week sentence. I'd've had time off for good behaviour except they caught me with a bottle of advocaat, although who'd drink that stuff? Anyway, they said I could serve the full sentence and that was being lenient as they could've given me another eight weeks for a repeat offence.' Fortune kicks the dryer again and it rattles into reluctant life. 'Ah. There we go. Besides, it wasn't my fault.'

'How come?'

'It was my hen's night. They practically poured the stuff down my throat.'

'They jailed you before your _wedding_?'

'Er. Well, yes. But it was lovely anyway. I got a guard of honour and everything, so to speak. And the hubby and I just made it official before I was sentenced, so I get conjugal visits twice a week.' Fortune bats her eyelashes. 'Hope you're not roomed too close to me. We get noisy sometimes.'

Kochanski hopes so too.

'So how come you got put in here for dimension jumping? They wouldn't jail Ace Rimmer now, would they?' Fortune moves to one of the washing machines and begins pulling out soggy piles of lavender cloth.

'How do you know about Ace?' Kochanski asks.

'He came here once. Saved the ship from almost certain destruction by a chameleonic microbe that started filling up all the rooms with new walls and stuff. My hubby wasn't happy.' Fortune looks coy. 'Ace was _terribly _heroic, you see.'

'_Fortune_. How could you?'

'Um. It wasn't all that hard, actually. Or,' Fortune adds, 'it was. Which meant that it wasn't. If you take my meaning.'

Kochanski does take her rather convoluted meaning. 'But you and your man are happy now?'

'Oh yes.' Fortune fills her basket and drags it across the floor towards the dryers. 'How did you get here?'

'Ace died.' Fortune lets out a little gasp. 'Sorry. But I inherited his ship, sort of. I'm looking for someone.'

'Someone who?'

'Shayne,' Kochanski admits. 'Kerry Shayne. She is -- was -- my girlfriend back home. But she died too.'

'Shayne? You won't get her from here. She's practically married to that bloke, that technician guy, what's-his-name... Todhunter. Little Frankie Todhunter.'

Kochanski nearly throws up.


	5. Final Escapes

One month after her first laundry shift, Kochanski is down in the laundry room alone, half an hour before the shift is due to start. She's down here because JayVee thought it might help to rehabilitate her to society if she does normal things; at least, that's what JayVee says she told Selby. She hasn't had the opportunity to escape yet, the guards are too efficient, and prisoners are prone to attempting escapes early in their sentences. That, and Jayv has been having a little trouble working out a plan this time.

The door opens. She turns around, expecting to see JayVee or Shayne, but it's Captain Rimmer.

'Hello, Kristine.'

'What do you want?' Kochanski asks, pulling a tea towel out of the washing machine and draping it over her arm. She has her sleeves rolled up to her mid-upper arm. It gets hot in the laundry room.

'You look uncomfortable. Why don't you take a break for a few minutes? You're not even meant to be down here yet, and certainly not alone.' Rimmer moves closer. Kochanski moves back and bumps into one of the other machines. 'It could be dangerous, a Psych all on her own... you might have more of your delusions and go insane...'

'You know I'm not insane. Ace Rimmer saved this ship from destruction.' Kochanski slides the tea towel back off her arm. 'Fortune told me.'

Rimmer laughs. 'Fortune is a drunkard and a waste of my time.' He moves closer and she's got nowhere to go. 'You, on the other hand... I'd like to have you out of here and working for me. It's simple enough... you could slice your sentence down to nothing if your behaviour is good...'

He makes her want to cry and scream, this Rimmer; now she knows what happens in the dimension where he passed his exams and climbed the ziggurat lickety-split. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely, even the best of men. Kochanski begins moving her wrist in tight little circles at her side, hoping he won't notice. The tea towel twirls and twirls.

'Do you want to demonstrate your good behaviour?'

_Jesus_. 'Could you _be_ any more pathetic?' Kochanski says. 'I mean, that's got to be the saddest line I've ever heard, even from the Captain of a ship about to rape one of his employees.'

_Sad_ \-- boom. _Pathetic_ \-- boom. _Rape_ \- boom, boom, boom. She can practically see each word leave her mouth, fly out and hit him like shots to the heart, or to the groin. His upper lip lifts in a snarl.

'So that's what you think, is it? If you're prepared to give up consent, then I suppose you're right... you could just make this easy on yourself and give in like a good little girl.' Rimmer's hand darts out and catches her by the throat, pushing her back against the washing machine. His other hand goes to her breast, squeezing through the pink material.

_Remember,_ a voice speaks in Kochanski's head. _He's got to play by the rules. He can't rape you unless he opens his trousers. That's your moment._

Sure enough, Rimmer backs up a step, letting her go, fumbling with his belt; that's her moment all right, and Kochanski takes it, snapping the wet, rat-tailed tea towel up between his legs. It strikes with a solid slap, and Rimmer yelps with pain. Kochanski snakes the tea towel back and snaps it again, hitting him in the stomach. Weapons are everywhere; you just have to know where to look. A third snap, and he's blinded temporarily, staggering backwards. Kochanski kicks him in the kneecap and runs.

'Shit!'

JayVee is in the doorway. Kochanski runs right into her. JayVee catches her, spots Rimmer; her mouth tightens and she slams the door shut, twisting the key in the lock. Rimmer probably has his own key, but it'll be a few minutes before he can use it. Kochanski is still holding the tea towel.

'That's some arm you got,' JayVee says. She grabs Kochanski's arm and tows her towards the central lift. 'But right now, we've got to get you out of here.' The lift carries them upwards, to the surface. 'I'll take you straight down to the landing bay. I know where the ship is; they haven't touched it, except to get a quick look at it. If they catch you, that's it and all about it.'

'How long do we have before he gets out?'

'Not long,' JayVee says.

They take the Xpress Lift out of the Brig and down to one of the other floors; Kochanski barely notices which one. She vaguely wishes she could've said goodbye to Fortune, who is going through her last week in the Brig. But it's too late for that now; JayVee is dragging her out of the lift, onto one of the trains, zooming at express speed through all the stations. Kochanski begins to recognise her surroundings from the trip in.

'As soon as you get out of the _Dwarf_,' JayVee says, 'you have to jump. They can catch you if they try, and believe me, they'll try. That lot don't like people beating the shit through their Captain.' She pulls her rad-pistol off her belt and hands it to Kochanski. 'You took me hostage and made me lead you out. You'll have to act up when we get down there. There are guards; shoot them.'

'_Shoot_ them?' Kochanski is prepared to wound, to hurt, but not to kill.

'Lowest setting stuns. I don't know why. Just don't aim for their balls. They might be family men.' JayVee slaps the button on the wall and the train hisses to a stop. 'Push me ahead of you. Gun on the back of my neck. Look angry.'

'I _am_ bloody angry.'

'Good girl,' JayVee says, eyes dancing; Kochanski senses this is the most fun JayVee's had in a while. 'You should be able to tie us up.'

'With what?'

'Dunno. Our clothes.' JayVee has a jacket tied around her waist. 'My jacket should hold the three of us, if you get our wrists. Two guards and me. With that in your hand, you'll be fine. They're unarmed; it's a formality to keep away gawkers, not to keep you from escaping.'

The door opens, and they go.

* * *

As JayVee has said, there are two guards by the _Wildfire_. Both are male, both are unarmed, and both nearly wet themselves when a manic-eyed Psych and a terrified Brig guard come barrelling out of the train station.

'Get down!' the Psych yells. Kochanski is in fine form. 'Away from the ship!' They stumble to do her bidding. 'You, tie his hands. Don't make me ask you twice.' She throws JayVee's jacket at them, and one of the guards knots it around the other's arms. 'Now you tie them together,' she orders JayVee, who tips her a wink the others can't see before doing her bidding. Kochanski attaches JayVee to the other two with JayVee's handcuffs. She checks they're well away from the ship, then spins the airlock wheel and ducks through, waving to JayVee. Any watchers will interpret it as a cheeky gesture, but JayVee understands.

And there are watchers; oh yes. As Kochanski scrambles through the tight hallway into the cockpit and fingerprint accesses Sasha, who looks surprised to see her, the train station doors burst open and a horde of people stream through, from Captain Rimmer -- who is waddling exactly like a man who has been hit between the legs with a saturated tea towel -- to a handful of gawkers at the back, including Lister.

'Go, Sasha!' Kochanski screams. '_Go_!' And she gives the finger to the horde.

The _Wildfire_ powers up and Kochanski runs through the ignition process, unerringly remembering it despite the weeks since she last did it. She slaps her oxygen mask on and straps herself in as the ship trundles towards the exit on clumsy landing wheels. The exit is already opening; the infrared makes it open automatically on approach of a ship, and Kochanski can see the green skin of a _Starbug_ outside.

'There's a ship!' Sasha says.

'Dodge the smegging thing! Haven't you ever played chicken?' Kochanski snaps the elastic of her goggles on and they speed straight towards the slowly-opening doors. The _Starbug_'s pilot is invisible behind the windshield, but she imagines he's not impressed.

'_Red Dwarf_ to _Wildfire_! Halt, or we shoot!'

Sasha guns the engine, as it were. 'If they're going to shoot at us they'd better have a bloody big gun, or it won't even make a dent.'

'Shields on,' Sasha announces. 'Adjusting for other craft in vicinity.' She pauses. 'Let's go for it.'

_Wildfire_ races for the exit. The _Starbug_ doesn't look like it's going to stop and Kochanski has to summon every bit of her willpower to keep from letting go of the steering yoke and covering her eyes... _Wildfire_ lifts off and clears the still-opening doorway... Captain Rimmer's voice is shrieking at her over the radio, but she can't make out any words through the static... the _Starbug_ is a huge thing right in front of her, how could she ever have sneered at them as tiny and insufficient, the smegging thing is _huge_... Kochanski clings to the steering yoke, very aware that any move she makes is futile, that this is Sasha's time and if she does anything it will make no difference... then just as it seems they're about to smash through the _Starbug_'s windshield, _Wildfire_ plunges like an Olympian diver, nose tilting almost straight down, and they pass under the _Starbug_ as close as a lover's breath on her cheek.

* * *

Kochanski looks into the monitor that shows the view behind her, the space-age equivalent of a rear view mirror. The bay doors are still open. The _Starbug_ is circling up and around to try and enter the _Dwarf_ again. And Captain Rimmer is still cursing at her over the radio. Kochanski peels her fingernails out of the steering yoke's rubber padding.

'We made it,' she says. 'We made it.'

'Of course,' says Sasha. 'Now... where would you like to go today?'

'Away,' says Kochanski. 'Very far away.'

This time, she knows when to brace, and the shock doesn't hit her nearly as hard. There is a wild furtz of static from the radio as the veil between dimensions rips and Captain Rimmer's voice is cut off mid-curse as they cross over. Kochanski privately hopes that the static hurt his ears. She also hopes that JayVee, her saviour, doesn't get any of the blame.

The tea towel is still clenched in her hand, oddly enough; Kochanski peels it free and uses it to wipe her face as Sasha decelerates after the jump.

'Where are we?' she asks.


	6. Final Foundations

After a month without Kochanski, the crew have finally adjusted to the fact that she is gone. Shayne's death was different: that, they have carried in their hearts and in their minds like a fiery brand. There. But Kochanski, alive when she left, is another story. Every time JayVee finished a shift she expected to find Kochanski in the galley or in the living quarters; every time Lister had a minor problem he couldn't talk to Rimmer about he thought she would be there; even Kryten, who still had trouble dealing with the idea of 'that woman', had been turning around and not finding her behind him.

But now they know she is gone, at least for the time being, and their routines have slowly altered to fit this new concept. JayVee has less cockpit time and more mummy time. Leah and Liam are three months old -- four, if you count deep-sleep, which she doesn't -- and that inopportune link that twins so often have seems to wake them at the same time, make them hungry at the same time, make them need changing at the same time.

Lister has started keeping a diary again, with just above mediocre results: the entries, while coming almost daily, are repetitive and have little in the way of interesting content. He doesn't show the diary to anyone, not even Rimmer, and feels faintly guilty about the notion that he needs to keep secrets from his lover. There are very few secrets, though. Life is too dull for secrets.

So: on this day, over a month after Kochanski's disappearance, they are wondering what she is doing. She isn't doing a whole lot, actually: Sasha miscalculated the jump in her hurry and they're meandering along to find the ship they are looking for. Kochanski is making her notes in her own diary. She plans to tell them all the whole story when she gets back to her own dimension, and she knows she won't remember it unless she writes bits down.

Lister leaves the cockpit in the Cat's hands and goes into the galley, finding a bag of crisps in the cupboard and opening them. The sound of steady crying comes from upstairs -- Liam, he thinks, knowing the sound well, but not well enough to differentiate between the twins. He heads upstairs, intending to go and see if he can help JayVee, but finds himself standing in the doorway of Kochanski and Shayne's room instead.

Everything is neat. The bath, wedged awkwardly into the shower recess, is pristinely polished, save for a slight layer of dust. The bed is neatly made, sheets tucked in, spare blanket folded over the foot. A single pencil lying on the table is the only thing out of place. Lister is reminded of one of those Western ghost towns, abandoned by all its inhabitants, almost nothing left behind to show that the place was ever lived in.

Lister picks the pencil up, puts it down again, almost exactly back in the dust-free mark it left on the table. He hears a cough from behind him.

'Listy?'

'Yes.'

They leave the room.

* * *

Rimmer sits Lister down in their room, frowning at the dog-end of cigarette behind his ear. 'I do wish you'd stop smoking,' he says.

'So do I,' Lister says. 'I can't.'

'We won't pick any up on the next cargo run. I'm surprised they haven't all gone stale or something.'

Lister says nothing, thinks: they have, actually. Every draw is like sucking on a burning rope. But he perseveres, for whatever meditative reason he's given Kochanski in the past. Calming. Soothing. Ritualistic.

Rimmer is undressing him. There are five buttons on Lister's shirt and Rimmer undoes them all, one by one, starting at the top, kissing Lister's skin as it is exposed. Lister thinks: _when did we make the change from annoying to erotic? When did this happen? Floor 13, of course, it all goes back to Floor bloody 13_.

'Are you all right?' Rimmer has stopped, concerned.

'Thinking. I'm fine. Don't let me stop you,' Lister says.

'I'm going to knock you out of this melancholy,' Rimmer says, then his mouth falls silent, working its way across Lister's chest, bringing one of his nipples to a dark peak, then crossing to repeat the task on the other one. Lister closes his eyes and lets go sadness for pleasure. Kochanski will be back; on the other hand, Rimmer's moods change like the seasons, only faster, and he might not be like this tomorrow.

'God bless the Brig,' he mumbles, in that incoherent way people slip into when they're being distracted by pleasure.

Rimmer takes his mouth off Lister's skin long enough to agree with him, and then starts working at Lister's belt, quick fingers making the oft-practiced motions. Lister stops thinking about linen closets and the past and starts thinking about the now again.

Rimmer nuzzles against the tightly stretched cotton of Lister's briefs. 'No boxers?'

'Kryten's -- um -- washing them. And one -- oh -- pair ripped.' Lister's mind recalls the term _warm fuzzy_ and then loses it again as Rimmer puts it into practice. 'Can't -- think--'

'You don't need to.' Rimmer opens his mouth, exhales a hot breath over Lister, then insinuates his fingers under the waistband and pulls. Lister lifts up automatically to help and his erection flips free rather comically from the confines of his underpants. Rimmer makes a rather pleased sound and moves immediately to lick and then to suck.

Lister goes 'Guh' and flops backwards, bent awkwardly over the bed, Rimmer's mouth warm and his tongue clever. It beats Lister why Rimmer ever became a Space Corps technician; surely a gigolo would have been a better choice with a mouth like that.

They both manage to not notice Kryten's appearance at the door and subsequent immediate disappearance as soon as the mechanoid realises what's going on. Lister's eyes are too tightly closed, and Rimmer's are as well, so they can both concentrate. JayVee comes along a moment later and watches for half a minute before collecting her brain and her dropped jaw and taking both back to her room for a quiet lie-down.

The outside world disappears at the moment of orgasm. Lister's mind goes somewhere else, quite probably somewhere between his legs, and when he's coming he could be with anyone sometimes and it wouldn't matter, due to the pure flood of sensation. But not this time; this time he gasps, 'Rimmer!' and his fingers dig deeply into Rimmer's hair, twining through the brown curls, holding Rimmer there as Lister's hips arch off the bed and Rimmer's name turns into a wordless cry of pleasure.

Rimmer waits, quietly pulls away, licks his lips.

Lister looks at him, dazed. 'Uff.'

'Yes,' Rimmer says.

Lister assumes that he has meaningfully stated his gratitude and his head flops back down. Rimmer gets up off his knees and moves Lister's legs up onto the bed so that he is a little more comfortable, then sits on the end of the bed and watches him until Lister looks like he's back on _Starbug_ and not flying through some other universe.

'Listy.'

'Mmmm?'

'I'd like you to stay out of Kochanski's room until she comes back. Keep things nice for her if you must, but the look on your face earlier... I don't like it.'

'Mmmm.'

'She _will_ be back,' says Rimmer.

'Mmmm.'

'Until then, it's you and me, Jayv and Cat and Kryten. We're still a team, with or without all our members, and you've been doing too much mooning around.'

'Hee hee,' says Lister. 'You said "members". Then you said "mooning".'

Rimmer smacks his bare thigh good-naturedly. 'Stop it, all right?' His voice goes back to serious. 'Are you really all right? Because if things are all that bad, we need to do something about it.'

'I'm really all right, man,' Lister says. 'It's just hard, losing both of them so close together. I know Kris isn't really gone, but it feels like it sometimes. I think it's the way she was acting before she left on _Wildfire_. I sometimes...' He pauses. 'I sometimes dream that she didn't really leave on _Wildfire_.'

The next pause is so long that Rimmer prompts him with a, 'Well?'

'That instead of leaving she got so sad that she killed herself.' Lister looks up at the ceiling above the bunk. 'I dream about walking down that hall and into her room and finding her in a bath full of blood. Or hanging off the light fixture -- I know it's a fluorescent light, but in my dreams it's not, it's an old one with a rope tied to it. Or -- or--' He can't finish, breaking off with a sob.

'Listy.' Rimmer gathers him into his arms. 'Listy, sssh. She's not dead. She's going to be back. She's not going to die. And you know Kris. She's far too strong-willed to kill herself.'

'Sometimes the ones who do it are the strong-willed ones,' Lister says without much conviction. 'They have the courage to do it.'

Rimmer rocks him, rocks him, rocks him. Holds him close and tells him again that Kochanski will be back. The calendar on the wall -- a three-million-years-out-of-date year planner -- has a day circled in red. They know when she's due back.

Lister cries anyway.

After a few minutes, Rimmer starts crying as well.

* * *

Teatime that night is a quiet affair. Kryten cooks for them, as usual, and then goes into the cockpit to pilot, letting the human crewmembers eat together. JayVee is nursing Leah. Liam waits his turn in the crib beside the table. The Cat seems to be the only adult not immersed in melancholy.

'I hope Kris finds her,' JayVee says, breaking the silence.

Rimmer pokes his pasta with a fork. 'Me too.'

'Me three,' Lister says.

'Me four,' says the Cat.

'Aaaa!' says Liam.

'That's right,' JayVee tells him. 'Auntie Krissie will go and find Auntie Shayne and bring her home.' She looks at the others, managing to smile. 'Liam knows what he's talking about, doesn't he?'

'Of course,' says Rimmer. 'Depend on the infant for wisdom.'

JayVee finishes feeding Leah and steals a few bites of pasta before Liam, knowing full well that it's his turn, shrieks by way of reminder. JayVee sighs and pushes her plate away, picking Liam up and settling him to her breast. The others barely bat an eyelid; this has become standard procedure at mealtimes. 'In my opinion, wisdom is greatest in childhood,' she says. 'It's only after we get tainted by society that we lose our deepest truths.'

'Baby, you're so smart,' the Cat says, slurping spaghetti.

JayVee rolls her eyes, strokes Liam's hair, and says, 'I'll get the Tarot cards out after tea, if you want. We haven't done any readings in a while. I'd like to see if we can check on Krissie's progress through them.'

'Didn't her last reading say stuff about settling down to long-term relationships?' Rimmer asks.

'Oh, good,' Lister says. 'We can rely on the bits of paper to be right.'

'Listy.' Rimmer puts his fork down and covers Lister's hand with his own. 'Don't dismiss it just because it's different to what you usually think.'

'I suppose,' Lister says. 'If I'd dismissed you because you weren't female...'

JayVee watches them schmoop and feeds her son, her mind far away.


	7. Final Guesses

'We're here,' says Sasha.

'But where's here?' Kochanski asks, peering through the windshield. She can't see any other ships. A vast expanse of blackness spreads out in front of her, broken only occasionally by a star. 'Sasha, are you sure we've come to the right place?'

'As sure as I can be,' Sasha says.

Kochanski sighs and flops back in her seat. 'Let's go slowly, do a tour of the area,' she says. 'Two hundred miles square. See if we can find anything they might be hiding behind.' She feels a little silly saying it. 'I'll look on the Navicomp.' A monitor blinks to life to her left and Kochanski leans over to study it. There are a few stars in the area and one small asteroid field far to the east, inasmuch as compass directions work in space. Kochanski says, 'Aha!' just as Sasha announces, 'Asteroid field bearing 06-01-81, two hundred miles.'

_Wildfire_ is a beautiful ship when she's moving fast. Brought down to a paltry five thousand miles an hour, if there were any observers outside they would think of a sleek leopard limping in pain. Kochanski studies the Navicomp and calls out course changes. Sasha concurs with each one and soon they're above the asteroid field. Only sixty or seventy chunks of rock are tumbling together, and one of them is suspiciously misshapen and green.

'Let's go down, Sasha.'

Sasha suppresses a giggle and does as she is ordered, taking the ship down in a graceful arc that will bring them to a halt near _Starbug's_ landing bay. Kochanski turns on the radio and begins a call on the general JMC frequency, doubling the broadcast on the _Starbug_ alternative frequency.

'_Wildfire_ to _Starbug_, do you copy? Is anyone down there?'

When a shaky voice responds, it's her own.

'_Starbug_, copy. Kristine Kochanski, acting-Captain of _Starbug_ _One_, speaking. Who's there?'

Kochanski rolls her eyes at Sasha. 'Alternate version of you from a different dimension.' The chances are good that this Kochanski will have encountered such a phenomenon before. 'Permission to board, acting-Captain?'

'Granted.' There is a sigh of relief from the radio. 'We thought you were Simulants.'

'Sorry, don't fancy tearing you apart today,' Kochanski says. 'See you in ten.' She nods to Sasha, who begins the docking procedure as _Starbug's_ landing bay doors open.

* * *

'She says she's an alternate version of me,' Kris says to Shayne. 'Do you think she's for real?'

Shayne snickers. 'Knowin' th' life we live in, Krissie, I'm not bloody surprised. Did ya say she could come in?'

'Yes.'

'Good.' Shayne pats Kris's stomach; she isn't very far along, but Shayne is utterly infatuated with the idea of their own child, even if she has played no biological part in the affair. 'Wonder what she wants?'

'I suppose we'll find out,' Kris says. 'Where's Jayv?'

'She an' Cat...' Shayne looks up at the midsection ceiling just as a loud thump and a lot of giggling indicates that someone has, perhaps, fallen out of bed. Or some two. 'I'm sure they'll come down.'

'I'm sure they'll...' Kris shakes her head at herself and picks up the mic for the intercom. 'All crew to landing bay, repeat, all crew to landing bay. We have an incoming visitor.' Kryten looks up from polishing the bench in the galley. 'She's not a Simulant.'

Rimmer comes downstairs a minute later, wearing only a towel.

'Where's everyone else?' Kris demands.

'I can only speak for Listy, and he's in the shower.' Rimmer's hair is suspiciously sudsy. 'Can you give us a minute? I need to...'

Kris grabs Rimmer's arm, marches him over to the sink, and sticks his head under the tap, turning it on full blast. 'Bugger your conditioner,' she growls when Rimmer makes to protest. 'We've got a bloody visitor and I want everyone down here.' She picks up the mic again. 'David Lister, Jodie Vaughan, Cat, get your backsides front and centre right now!'

* * *

The crew manage to be assembled in the landing bay by the time the _Wildfire_ has landed. Rimmer is still wearing only his towel. Lister is attempting to dry his hair on it. JayVee looks flustered. The Cat is wearing Winnie the Pooh boxer shorts and looks mortified as Kochanski climbs out of the _Wildfire's_ cockpit.

'Welcome, Kochanski,' Kris says. The doubles shake hands, each trying not to appraise the other. Kochanski notes the possessive expression on Kris's face when she moves to shake hands with Shayne. _Oh_. She'd better not make too much of her quest around these two. Luckily, she's saved from thinking about it when she turns to Lister and Rimmer.

'Looks like some things are the same in both our dimensions,' she says. Lister straightens up and tries not to let his unbelted jeans fall down. 'The Brig?' Lister nods. 'It all goes back to the Brig.'

Rimmer salutes. 'Ma'am.' And drops his towel. The landing bay resounds with laughter and Rimmer, blushing, scrambles to cover himself again.

The first thing, as soon as they're settled into the midsection with cups of coffee (dried out years ago and reconstituted by Kryten with much scraping of the inside of the tin with a spatula), that they do is establish where their timelines split off. Kochanski is pretty sure the last universe she was in was one of the alternates that split off from the Omni-zone -- the mirror one, as opposed to the backwards one or her 'normal' one -- and thinks that this is just an alternate dimension instead. Kris concurs.

'Jayv lost the babies in our dimension,' she says. 'But we've promised her babysitting galore as soon as I have mine.' Shayne has a possessive hand on Kris's belly. 'There's always hope for Jayv to get pregnant again in the future, of course.' Kris rolls her eyes. 'It won't be for lack of trying, eh Jayv?' JayVee turns scarlet.

'Who's the father?' Kochanski asks, intrigued, wondering if her Shayne would want children then remembering that she doesn't _have_ her Shayne any more and biting back a sudden howl of anguish.

'Er... Rimmer,' Kris says. She looks suitably mortified when Kochanski hoots with laughter. 'Don't look at me like that! It was all strictly above board, no funny business.'

'Unless ya count fiddlin' with th' medical shit as "funny business",' Shayne puts in. 'Bloody abject, is what I call it.'

'Why Rimmer?' Kochanski asks.

'Why not?' Kris says. 'I have a limited genetic pool to choose from here, and the Cat's spoken for as far as women are concerned. And Dave felt he'd fathered enough children--'

'--including meself--'

'--and it was time to give someone else a turn.' Kris sighs. 'It was a messy business.'

'Not to mention difficult,' Rimmer says. 'It's difficult to think erotic thoughts when the mental image of a turkey baster keeps intruding into your mind.'

'_Thank_ you, Arnie,' says JayVee. 'I'm sure we all needed to have that shared.' She is composedly listening to the conversation despite the fact that the Cat has his face buried against the side of her neck and is apparently giving her a hickey -- which, Kochanski thinks, with those fangs could be quite lethal. 'Cat, get off me.'

The Cat pulls back, offers the company a smile, then starts whispering in JayVee's ear. The speed at which her face turns bright red possibly rivals the speed of light.

'Um. I just remembered I... have to return some videotapes,' she says.

'Sure, fine, whatever,' Shayne says, waving at the two of them. 'Go on, piss off. Just don' get too bloody noisy again. Ya keep the neighbours awake, an' they're three million years away.'

It seems like some things transcend the differences between dimensions. The Cat and JayVee are still utter hornbags. Rimmer and Lister are still quietly devoted to each other. Kochanski looks at Kris and Shayne. Could this be what would have happened in her own universe if Shayne had survived, if her life had been spared in return for the twins'? Of course it would -- this is the alternative dimension where that very thing happened. She doesn't need to imagine it; this her is living it. Kochanski remembers when parallel dimensions used to be something people merely speculated about, before the _Wildfire_ was launched in 2181. She remembers the beginning of the project, in 2176, when it made the front pages for a while: the deriding headlines about how the Space Corps had gone insane, the wild guesses about where this project would lead. The odds had been against it in the beginning, most civilians convinced that the _Wildfire_ would end up as so much scrap metal rusting away in one of the storage hangers on Europa or Io.

How wrong they had been.

Kochanski stirs more rehydrated milk into her coffee and asks, 'So what happened before you got here? Were you in the Brig?'

'Yes,' Kris says. 'It's where I met Shayne, and where Dave and Arn hooked up. And where those two,' -- she points at the ceiling, where the occasional moan or giggle can be heard from the general direction of Cat and JayVee's quarters - 'met as well.'

'It all seems to come back to Floor 13,' Kochanski says. 'Maybe that's the way it's going to be everywhere.'

'You haven't said why you're flying around in _Wildfire_,' Lister says. 'Are you being Ace Rimmer, or something?'

Kochanski has a brief mental flash of herself with Ace's hair and snorts. 'No, Lister, I'm not.' She pauses, her gaze flickering to Kris and Shayne before she continues, 'I'm actually looking for someone.'

'Who?' says Rimmer.

'The person... the one reason... well, maybe I'd better explain what's different between our dimensions. Like I said, in my dimension Jayv had her babies -- twins. But my Shayne died. It was the cancer.' Kochanski accepts the tissue that Kryten offers her and blows her nose. 'I'm looking for an alternate version of her who isn't dead or spoken for.'

Shayne, across the table, reacts just as Kochanski expects; she moves even closer to Kris and her face tightens up into a mask, hiding her emotions. But when Kochanski sighs and looks down at the tissue, twisting it between her fingers, it's Shayne who speaks up first.

'I'm sorry ya lost ya girl.' Her voice is a little hoarse. Kochanski looks up and sees a tear creeping down Shayne's cheek. 'I gotta say, if I was in ya place I'd be doin' th' same thing. Krissie means th' world to me.' Her hand twitches, reflexively curling into what Kochanski has always thought of as her 'smoking jitter': fingers curved, index and middle slightly parted as if an invisible cigarette rests there. 'An' I wish ya th' best of luck.'

'Thank you, Shayne. I know I'm not going to have any luck here, but all the same, it's good to see you -- all of you,' Kochanski amends, realising that desperation is creeping into her voice again.

'You should stay for a few days, ma'am -- dimension jumping is a dangerous thing, you need to rest,' says Kryten. 'I can't bear the thought of you collapsing and leaving your crewmates never knowing what happened to you.' He looks like _he's_ ready to cry. Kochanski just nods.

* * *

She spends three days with them, most of that time spent awkwardly avoiding the topic of her quest. Kris and Shayne seem so happy that she doesn't want to ruin everything with her tales of woe. Instead, she keeps them laughing by talking about her second round of imprisonment in the Brig, and succeeds in outraging Shayne when she mentions the lecherous Captain Rimmer.

'Hell, Kochanski! If our Arn ever even thought...' She makes a fist and pounds her jeans-clad thigh. 'Bloody hell!' Her hair has grown back to a fine mist over her head, the colour as yet difficult to define, but Kochanski remembers: blonde, dark blonde, teetering on the edge of being brown. Shayne has dyed her hair for at least five years and maybe more, keeping it red after gaining the reputation in the Tank of being a crazy redhead, something like a female version of Kill Crazy.

'He wouldn't,' Kochanski says.

'That's right,' says Rimmer, looking revolted. 'I wouldn't dare harm a woman like that. I wouldn't think of it. Or a man either,' he adds, gazing lovingly at Lister, who is in the cockpit, steering with his feet up on the yoke.

'Don' worry, Arn, we ain't sayin' ya would.'

'Good.'

'Good.'


	8. Final Havens

Kochanski's sitting in the midsection on what she has decided will be her second-last day on this alternate _Starbug_, alone, doing a crossword that's over three million years old (of course) and has several wrong answers pencilled in what she recognises as Lister's handwriting. Lister and the Cat are on cockpit duty and Rimmer is sitting at the other end of the table, highlighting something in a textbook.

Shayne comes down the stairs.

'Kochanski, gotta minute?' As it has for the past three days, the sound and sight of her makes Kochanski's heart skip a beat, especially since Shayne's only wearing a dressing gown, her wispy hair damp from the shower. She gets up and follows Shayne upstairs to the familiar bedroom, where Kris is waiting; Kris nods and smiles before leaving the room, ordering the door closed behind her.

'What's going on?' Kochanski says suspiciously.

Shayne comes to her, putting her arms around Kochanski's neck. 'We don' have to do this if ya don' want to,' she says, and then kisses Kochanski.

Kochanski is immediately lost in the feel of Shayne's lips against hers. Despite her reputation as a hard woman, a dangerous person to cross, Shayne's kisses are like ice cream: sweet and soft. They're anything but cold. Her tongue is even hotter and tastes Kochanski's mouth as if Shayne and not Kochanski has been the one deprived for all this time. One of Shayne's hands sneaks down and cups Kochanski's breast through the thin material of the T-shirt she is wearing.

All rational thought is lost in this touch, this contact. Kochanski loses her head completely and her hands roam Shayne's body, discarding the dressing gown with a speed and carelessness she never showed even with _her_ Shayne. They fall onto the bed, kissing, Kochanski getting clumsy in her eagerness, Shayne patiently calming her down, pulling her clothes away, kissing the side of her neck, then brushing light kisses over her breasts, her tongue circling just around the areola of Kochanski's nipple before giving in to Kochanski's pleading cries and kissing her properly, catching the hardened peak between her teeth and grazing it with light nibbles.

Kochanski knows she could find a safe haven here so easily, in this Shayne's arms, with her kisses and touches, between her legs, but also knows that like so many other precious illusions this one will be shattered with the morning. She puts her hand under this Shayne's chin, tilts her head back, and kisses her forehead.

'No.'

Not disappointment, but acceptance shows in Shayne's eyes. 'No?'

'I can't.'

Shayne pulls back, finding her dressing gown and wrapping it around herself. 'I'm glad ya could stop, Kochanski,' she says, and all the difference between this woman and her Shayne is there in those words, that name, not _Krissie_ but _Kochanski_, formal as two officers greeting one another at the start of a shift.

'I'm glad I could too.' Kochanski dresses quickly, a blush spreading from her cheeks down her neck, as the thought of what she just almost did turns dangerous. 'Shayne, I'm sorry. I know you're not her.'

'Nobody else is, Kochanski.' Shayne's words are too direct. 'Nobody will ever be th' same. Ya gotta realise that, an' better ya realise sooner than later.'

'Why did she have to die?'

Shayne looks pained, says nothing, instead moving back off the bunk completely to give Kochanski room to dress. Kochanski doesn't ask any more questions. For one thing, she can't think of anything more important (except perhaps _What the hell just happened?_), but also because she knows that, here at least, there will be no answers.

She makes the jump the next day, after apologising more times than is strictly necessary to both Kris and Shayne. The former brushes it off with, 'But we're the same person, so what does it matter?' while the latter does nothing but give her that silent blue gaze again. Better to be back aboard _Wildfire_ with only Sasha for company, trying not to think too hard about yesterday.

Sasha asks her what's wrong five times within the first three minutes and Kochanski brushes her off every time, feeling rude, but that rudeness not overcoming the other feeling that's rising up inside her.

What she feels like is a betrayer. What makes it more interesting and complicated and frustrating is the nature of the betrayal -- it's like she's betrayed herself, somehow. She remembers the possessive looks, the jealous glances that the other version of her kept giving her the first couple of days. She wonders what made the woman change her mind and offer Shayne to her like some kind of... of sex toy. As bad as she feels she can't imagine how Shayne must feel, can't imagine what the other Kochanski must have said to her to persuade her to offer herself for a virtual stranger's gratification.

'Where to now, Krissie?'

'Where. Fucking. Ever.' She doesn't get quite as much joy out of swearing as she'd hoped -- the words connect her to Shayne, who has a mouth on her like a fallen angel -- but the shocked look on Sasha's face works. 'I'm going to lie down for a while.'

_Wildfire_ being a one-man -- or one-woman -- craft, there aren't any surveillance cameras in the bedroom behind the cockpit, not like _Red Dwarf_, where every inch except the most private of locations can be monitored. Kochanski flops onto the bed, then changes her mind and crawls through the hatchway into the shower. It's not exactly designed with comfort in mind - she has to shower sitting down -- but she can wash herself and relieve a little of the tension that has been building for the last few days. Usually her water ration is kept down to thirty seconds, and all of it re-cyc so she's probably getting dirtier anyway, but today she presses the button four times and luxuriates under the spray, even though she's cramped and it quickly gets painful.

She doesn't know when she starts crying, but the water washes the tears away.

'I've got a new dimension for you to try out,' Sasha announces when Kochanski returns to the cockpit, as if nothing has happened. 'As far as I can tell it's not one you've visited before.'

'How can you tell?' Kochanski asks.

'It's a matter of keeping tabs on dimensional coordinates. You know about the Omni-zone?'

'It's supposed to be the place where the six Universes converge,' Kochanski says. 'I don't know how they chose six, or found out that it was six.'

'A lot of exploration, extrapolation, and guessing,' Sasha says. 'There's our universe, then one that runs backwards, and so on.' Kochanski assumes that 'so on' means Sasha doesn't have a clue either. 'Then within each universe there are millions of dimensions that branch off every time you make a different, life-altering decision.'

'What, just me?'

'No, I meant everyone... oh, you're being silly. Well.' Sasha sighs. 'Anyway, this is another dimension in your universe, and if you're hoping for a Shayne as similar to yours as possible, then this is probably the way to go.'

'Mmmm.'

'Krissie, what's wrong? I asked you before, but maybe you didn't hear me.' Sasha would fold her arms if she had any. 'Or maybe you just ignored me.'

'I'm sorry. Really. I just... it was confusing back there.'

'Yeah, I did wonder why you got out so fast. I would've expected you to stay a little longer.'

'Why? I'm on a quest here, not just out for tea and crumpets. I'm looking for Shayne. You know that.'

'I do,' Sasha says. 'Which is why I wonder why you ran away from her so fast when you found her.'

'You know I couldn't have that Shayne, she was taken. One of the prerequisites here is that my potential partner not have a significant other,' Kochanski says. 'I just... I don't know. Something happened back there, and I'm not sure that I understand it.'

'Go on.'

'It was like that other version of me wanted to make me happy by getting Shayne to sleep with me,' Kochanski blurts. 'She didn't want to at first, but for some reason she practically offered Shayne to me yesterday. But I realised that it wasn't for keeps. I backed off.'

'I'm glad you did,' Sasha says.

'So am I, but I wish I knew why they set it up in the first place.'

'Well, a lot of things we come up against in life are a test of character,' Sasha says. 'Maybe this was just one of them. Maybe they were testing you. They might even have wanted you to join their crew. Sure, it'd get confusing trying to keep track of which Kris was which, but you'd be a valuable asset to any crew... but that other you would want to know that she wasn't going to have any competition.'

'When you put it that way...' Kochanski chews her lower lip for a minute, twirls her hair between her fingers, and frowns at a few split ends. 'Sasha?'

'Yeah?'

'Let's go.'

* * *

Back home, JayVee has the Tarot cards spread out and is simultaneously trying to read them and trying to keep Leah from eating them.

'Cat, get your daughter under control,' Lister says.

The Cat scoops Leah up and holds her, removing the High Priestess from her fist and wiping spit off it. 'Where does this one go?' he asks.

JayVee takes the card and places it in the layout she has already arranged, looking at it thoughtfully. 'Looks like Kris could be in for an interesting time,' she says. 'This card represents her.'

'Priestess? Weird,' Lister says, flicking through the list of card meanings. 'Very weird.'

Liam manages to wriggle away from Rimmer and scatter the cards everywhere, ruining the layout.

'Oh, _Liam_,' JayVee scolds.

Lister starts picking the cards up. 'Where did they all go?' he asks.

'I don't know, I hadn't turned any of them but that one,' JayVee says. 'Let me see.' Lister hands the cards over. 'Queen of Wands... Two of Cups... hrm... Death? I hope not...'

'Can you tell anything from them?' Rimmer asks.

'Not without knowing where they were meant to be in the spread,' JayVee says. 'I'll do it later. I think a certain young man wants attention.' She picks Liam up and wrinkles her nose. 'And I think I know why, too. Change time for you.'

'I can do that, ma'am,' Kryten says.

'Any day, Kryte... any day.'


	9. Final Improvisations

'I've got to say, Sasha, I could use a break sometime soon,' Kochanski says, sitting cross-legged in the pilot's seat and blowing on her fingernails to dry the polish. 'This is wearing me down.'

Sasha bobs her head, blinks, and changes course to avoid a comet's tail. 'It's been four months. You've been through a lot. You need some time around other people to rest instead of pursuing this. just for a little while.'

Kochanski stretches, groaning pleasurably as her sore muscles shift, then less pleasurably as her fingernails graze the seatback and come away smeared. 'Make it soon, okay, Sash? Otherwise I'll be spending months on trial for homicide.'

'Who're you going to kill, out here?'

'Whoever I can find.'

They come out of the jump hard, Sasha cursing and throwing the tiny ship into a hard starboard turn to avoid the telltale shimmer of a biodome surrounding the moon they're probably meant to be landing on. Kochanski's calf cramps and she lets out an agonised shriek, yanking at her harness, fumbling for the clasp and opening it, then digging her fingers deep into the knotted muscle in an attempt to soothe it away.

'Krissie! Get back in your seat!'

'Cramp,' Kochanski gasps through the pain. 'Can't.'

She hears Sasha cursing away as the computer attempts to right the ship, but it's white noise. A nasty jolt throws her sideways but she doesn't dare leave the cramp for a second to catch herself. Mistake. Her head thuds into one of the consoles and she sees a brief flash of ultraviolet light before it becomes dead black.

* * *

'What're you doing?'

'Reading her chart.'

'Put it down.'

'I'll put it down when I'm _ready_.'

'Hey, she's waking up!'

'Karen?'

Kochanski lifts a hand, which wavers mid-air, then finds its way to her face. She uses it to prise one eye open.

Three faces are hovering around her, presumably belonging to the three voices she has just been listening to arguing. All three are male. One has a long tangle of blond hair around it. The other two are redheads, one with close-cropped hair and a kiss-curl, the other with hair hanging off his head like a scruffy Newfoundland puppy. It's the face of this last man that makes Kochanski blink -- one-eyed -- and lift her other hand to persuade her other eye to open.

'Shayne?'

The man breathes a sigh of relief. 'She's okay,' he announces. 'I guess ya took a real whack, Kaz.'

Kochanski coordinates her lips and tongue and manages, 'My name's not Karen. Or Kaz. It's Kristine.'

The man -- who is at once Shayne and not-Shayne -- presses a hand to her forehead. 'What the hell happened to ya?'

_What the hell _did_ happen to me?_ Kochanski wonders. She remembers her leg cramping -- it twitches again at the memory -- and Sasha yelling at her to buckle up. They must've hit the moon's shield. She tries sitting up, but aborts the attempt as sparkles of blue appear before her eyes, which at least stay open by themselves when she takes her hands away. 'I don't know. My ship crashed.'

'We were wondering what you were doing with the _Wildfire_,' the blond guy chips in.

Kochanski stares.

It's JayVee.

'Jayv?' She licks her lips and Shayne pours her a glass of water from a pitcher. Her surroundings are beginning to come into focus -- she's in a hospital bed, and the three men are the only people in attendance; no nurses or doctors, and when she looks, no call button to summon any. Weird hospital. The water helps a little. 'Can we start at the beginning?'

'Well, we thought you and Anderson had disappeared after you went haring off after that Rimmer guy and his two bits of totty. We didn't hear anything about the _Wildfire_, though. Where'd you pick that up?' JayVee -- if indeed this is this dimension's version of her -- asks.

'Let me explain. I'm not the Kochanski you know. My first name is Kristine. I don't know your Karen. I come from another dimension. I've been using the _Wildfire_ to travel. It's tuned in to find alternate versions of a woman named Jodie Vaughan.' Saying the full name seems strange, and it is almost as strange to her three listeners.

The blond reacts first: 'Well, I'm Jason Vaughan. Just call me Vaughan, though.'

'Jason... I'll tell her that when I get home,' Kochanski says. She looks at Shayne. 'I'm guessing you're someone Shayne. There's -- was -- an alternate version of you in my dimension as well.'

'Kerry Shayne. At ya service.' Shayne makes a half-bow. 'Make it Shayne.'

_Kerry? I guess it _is_ kinda gender-neutral..._ Kochanski looks at the other redhead, the one with the kiss-curl, who remains unidentified. 'I'm sorry, but I have no idea who you are.'

'Riley Jackson. Friends call me Jackie. You may as well. We know this dimension's version of you quite well.' Jackie makes the same respectful half-bow.

Kochanski looks at the three of them. 'I'm impressed,' she says. 'Usually I have to do a lot more explaining before people will believe that I'm from another dimension.'

Vaughan laughs. 'Not here,' he says. 'We're next-door-moons with Europa, and the _Wildfire_ tests have been going on for years. It's nice to know they got results.'

'What year is this?'

Vaughan tells her. It's not as low a number as Kochanski was half-expecting. 'And where are we?'

'Io,' Jackie says. 'Next door, as Vaughan says, to Europa. Which, I think, is where they've taken your ship.'

'No! They can't!' Kochanski protests. 'Why would they do that?'

'As far as everyone's concerned, you're Karen Kochanski and you're guilty of stealing that _Wildfire_,' Jackie says when the other two look reluctant to reply. 'Quite possibly to use as a tool to get revenge on Ace Rimmer for his ill-treatment of your friend Lister.'

'Dave? Dave Lister?'

'No, Danielle Lister.'

'It figures,' Kochanski groans.

The strange trio leave a few minutes later, evicted by a nurse, who flops into the chair beside Kochanski's bed as soon as the three are gone. She's fairly young, olive-skinned, with a smile that sneaks onto her face when she's not paying attention. The smile reveals pointed teeth, which doesn't startle Kochanski as much as the girl evidently thinks it should.

'They weren't hassling you, were they?'

'No, not at all,' Kochanski says.

The nurse picks up Kochanski's chart and flips through it. 'Karen Kochanski?' And grins, like they're sharing a secret. 'Well, duh. Of course it's you.'

'Actually, the information on that chart's inaccurate,' Kochanski says. 'My name is Kristine Kochanski. I'm not from around here.'

The nurse frowns. 'You're not Karen? You sure look like her.' She leans over the bed. 'Wait... I see now.'

'That I'm not her?'

'No. Of course you're Karen. You've just got concussion, that's all. After that crash in the _Wildfire_... how on Io did you get your hands on that, anyway?'

Kochanski is having trouble computing this. She really is. She wants to be in another dimension where she doesn't have to worry about being in a hospital, being mistaken for someone else, doesn't have to worry about trying to get off the moon and get her ship back, doesn't have to --

* * *

The bunk creaks as Shayne rolls over to face her, one arm draping over her body, the other tucked under her neck so that she's held safe in Shayne's embrace. 'Baby? 'Smatter?'

'What?' Kochanski's not quite up to date with reality, but her heart is racing and her breathing is too.

'Ya called out in ya sleep. Nightmarin'?' Kochanski can feel Shayne's breath on her face, regular and reassuring. 'Don' worry, baby, I'm here. Can ya remember what ya were dreamin' about?'

'No... no,' Kochanski says. 'I'm not good at remembering dreams.'

Shayne's little body wriggles closer and her voice takes on a decidedly suggestive tone. 'Want me t' make ya a dream t' remember?'

'Mmmm.' Kochanski's not very good at vocalising, either, at least not when Shayne's hand has left its resting position draped over her hip and is creeping up under her satin pyjama top. 'You make good...' There's not a word at the end of the sentence because Shayne's fingers have found her nipple, touching lightly, peaking it, and then Shayne's palm circles over the peak, and Kochanski shivers with need.

It seems sometimes as if theirs has always been a physical relationship first and foremost, but both of them know it wouldn't be the same with the deep feelings between them. However, sometimes pure wanton physical desire takes over, and...

Shayne's hand leaves Kochanski's breast, slides back out from beneath the satin, and Kochanski is about to protest when she feels Shayne's fingers tugging at the buttons holding the top closed, and then she doesn't need to protest against anything except the chill of the air raising goosebumps on her exposed skin.

'Aphrodite,' Kochanski mumbles muzzily at the top of Shayne's tousled head, as Shayne's mouth goes down to nip at her neck.

'I prefer t' think of myself as Artemis,' Shayne says, the words buzzing against Kochanski's skin.

'The huntress?' Mild bemusement.

'An' look what I caught.' Deep amusement.

Kochanski is saved from having to think of a response as Shayne starts gracing her skin with a number of little kisses, always teasingly _that_ close to her nipple but not actually touching, until the moan is torn from her throat and Shayne gives in, fluttering her tongue, savouring the sounds Kochanski makes because of it.

One thing Shayne particularly likes doing is teasing Kochanski. She likes doing it because she's good at it and Kochanski is still learning how to reciprocate, and she also likes doing it because Kochanski makes the most interesting sounds when she's being teased. These are not the sounds of a hunted, cornered animal, but they're close, in a good way. They're the sounds of sweet torment, the sounds that _need_ and _want_ and _now_ would make if they were onomatopoeic and not prosaic, boring arrangements of letters that really mean very little when compared to this.

But the main reason she enjoys teasing Kochanski is because she can, on a good day, make her come before she even takes her pants off. And _that_ makes all the patient effort worth it. Oh, yes.

Right now, however, she's more interested in quick results. She doesn't know why Kochanski has been having nightmares, or what they're about, but she does know that she can make Kochanski sleep the rest of the night through without them. There's a certain logic to this: if one has come one's brains out, one therefore can't have nightmares. Or so Shayne reasons.

Not that she's doing much reasoning, though, being much more focused on licking, nibbling, and sucking the nipple in her mouth. She releases it after a few more moments and moves to the other side, paying Kochanski's second nipple just as much considerate attention, while her hands roam Kochanski's familiar body with strong, sure movements.

She's hunting nightmares. She's hunting them down and killing them.

Kochanski isn't much help when Shayne moves to pull her pyjama bottoms off, but lifts her hips dreamily when Shayne pokes her in the side. Clothing out of the way, Shayne has her freedom of Kochanski's body, and rests her cheek on Kochanski's thigh for a moment, just breathing in the smell of her lover. She turns her head and kisses the inside of Kochanski's thigh. Moves her head, kisses the other thigh.

'Mmmm.'

Voice like a horny angel. Shayne nuzzles her thigh just to feel Kochanski squirm, then gets down to business, tongue unerringly finding and flickering over Kochanski's clitoris. Kochanski's hips jerk and Shayne tastes her again, then has an amusing thought and starts tracing the letters of the alphabet with her tongue.

She gets up to H before Kochanski cries out; at M she pauses and Kochanski whimpers; by W or maybe X she's trying to figure out whether Kochanski has actually stopped coming and started again since H, or whether she just never stopped.

'Better?'

'Athththdth.'

Shayne correctly interprets this as a yes, helps Kochanski get dressed again, and lies with her arms around Kochanski's still trembling form.

For the rest of the night, it's nightmares zero, Kerry Lee Shayne and her talented tongue miles ahead on points.

* * *

\-- to -- what? What is she thinking?

'See what I mean?' the nurse says. 'You're fading in and out all over the place.' She pats Kochanski's hand. 'I'll be back in a minute with a sedative.'

_Shit_, Kochanski thinks, beginning to cry as the nurse leaves the room.


	10. Final Journeys

The first thing Kochanski has to do is figure out how the hell to get out of the hospital. Given that people think she's an alternate version of herself -- an alternate version who is going to be in some fairly serious shit for 'stealing' the _Wildfire_ \- it would be ideal if she can do it soon, preferably without being detected.

To do this, she's going to need some help.

Vaughan, Jackie, and Shayne -- well, he _did_ ask her to call him that, no matter how weird it feels tripping off her tongue, referring to this... this _male_ \-- seem to be her best bet. She's already freaked out by the fact that they are the only three males she's seen on the whole moon. Not that she's seen a million people or anything, but everyone else from the nurse (whose name, apparently, is Kat, a fact that does not entirely surprise Kochanski) to the cleaner to the occasional person who passes by in the corridor has been female.

She can vaguely remember the stories about Io. The eternal 'they', 'they who know all', used to call it the 'Pussy Palace'. Considering Arnold Rimmer, she's somewhat unsurprised (then takes back this uncharitable thought, berating herself).

She knows a few things from the nurse Kat, who, despite clearly not believing Kochanski's story about alternate dimensions and all that, has given in and told her a very abbreviated version of the events of recent times that involve 'her' (or rather, this Karen woman, who sounds nasty and not at all the way Kochanski wants to be spoken about). Alison Rimmer and Danielle Lister, along with Kat herself, intended to dimension jump with yet another alternate version of Lister. The Arnold Rimmer from that _Dwarf_ stayed behind on Io with Karen, but has since disappeared with two itinerants from the inner Solar System. And Kat, deciding that she preferred Io to space travelling, left the _Starbug_ they were travelling on at the last minute to come home.

Now, Karen Kochanski is out there somewhere trying to hunt down Arnold Rimmer. This isn't Kristine Kochanski's problem, as far as she's concerned; all she's worried about is getting out of the hospital, getting to Europa, getting her _Wildfire_ back, and getting the hell out of this upside-down, gender-bent dimension. She's all for the alternate dimension theory -- after all, if she's lucky she'll get Shayne back for believing in it -- but this is just plain disturbing. She'd rather be in the backwards universe again than this.

She's not quite sure just why it's so worrying, but suspects that the fact that any minute now she might be dragged out of bed and court-martialled might have something to do with it.

So. Bugger Karen. Get hold of the three blokes, and... and... make them do _something_.

'Kristine?'

Vaughan is at the door, blinking behind thick glasses, and grins when he sees that she's awake. 'Come on guys, she's awake.' Shayne and Jackie follow him into the room, both sidling somewhat.

'Where's the nurse?' Kochanski asks.

'Loo,' Shayne says.

Kochanski swings her legs over the edge of the bed, ignoring the throbbing in her head, which is still sickeningly strong although she's been here a week. 'You've got to get me out of here.'

The three men exchange a glance and a grin. 'We were hoping you'd say that,' says Jackie. 'We'd worked out that you really don't belong here, and whether your story's believed or not, the higher-ups are gonna want to keep you around for a long time to ask you several billion questions.' He throws a garbage bag to her and Kochanski just manages to catch it. 'Change your clothes. We'll wait.' All three turn their backs as Kochanski shucks her hospital gown and struggles into the jeans, T-shirt and sneakers they have brought her. She guesses that the clothing has come from their wardrobes and is grateful that Jackie seems to be nearly the same build as her, as the sneakers fit perfectly. Oversized -- or undersized, for that matter -- shoes will be no good if she has to run.

'How do you plan to get me to Europa?' she asks as they sneak, as much as a group of four can possibly sneak, out of her room and down the corridor.

'We've got our own little moon-hopper,' Vaughan says. 'We work in Engineering, with computers, and sometimes we have to go and get parts from the other moons. We can't exactly wait for a big ship to bring a load in -- apart from anything else, we control the oxygeneration unit and stuff from our lab. It means that we need to be able to fly on a moment's notice. We can buzz you over right aw--'

'Kat!' Shayne hisses.

Jackie flings open the nearest door and they crowd into a linen closet, Kochanski pulling the door shut just as the squeak of Kat's shoes rounds the corner. If only she's not coming to get a fresh sheet or a spare pillowcase --

But the squeaking goes on past, and Kochanski starts breathing again.

Shayne scrambles up the shelves. 'We can' go back out there,' he says. 'She'll be comin' back as soon as she realises ya ain't in ya room, Kristine. We gotta get out some other way.' He shoves at the ceiling, and something up there pops free. 'Ventilation duct, anyone?'

'Won't she hear us?' Kochanski accepts a lift up from Vaughan.

'Not if we hurry. We're not far from the laundry here. If we can get back out there, there's a back entrance. The laundry serves the dorms as well as the hospital, and of course the patients can't be disturbed by the Eng boys coming over to wash puke outta their sheets at three in the morning,' Jackie says. 'Keep moving.'

Kochanski follows the dirty white soles of Shayne's sneakers, which are about all she can see in the darkness. The duct clangs and bangs and if Kat has checked Kochanski's room and knows she's gone, then this has to be one of the first places she'll check, they're making so much damn _noise_, and --

'Kristine!' She feels a hand slap her cheek. 'Not now! Pass out on the ship, but not now!'

She silently thanks Vaughan and gets moving again, almost running into Shayne's backside in her eagerness to be out of the narrow darkness of the duct. Maybe she's caught Dave's claustrophobia somewhere along the line. She sure as hell hopes not.

Shayne stops, levering up the edge of another panel cautiously, peeking under it.

'Right place,' Vaughan breathes from behind Kochanski, 'but there might be anyone in there.'

Apparently, however, the coast is clear; Shayne lifts the panel up all the way, and then grabs the edge of the hole and lowers himself down. There's a dull clang, a muffled swear word or three, and then his hands wave up through the hole, beckoning Kochanski forward.

The laundry room is big and deserted, but the hum from one end of the room indicates something is in one of the tumble dryers; hopefully the owner won't be coming back for that any time soon. Kochanski gets down off the washing machine she has stepped down onto and moves out of Vaughan's way. Jackie comes last, pulling the ceiling panel closed behind himself. The laundry door is open on sunlight and grass and the smell of freedom -- or, at least, something that isn't the hospital smell of citrus cleaning fluids and stale urine.

'How far to wherever you stash your ship?' Kochanski asks.

'Oh, shit,' Jackie says abruptly, punching a nearby machine.

'What?' Kochanski doesn't like the sound of _oh shit_. _Oh shit_ sounds very much like a synonym for _You're going to be stuck here until someone comes and takes you away to ask you lots of complicated questions that you don't have answers for_. It's a pretty useful phrase. She wishes it wasn't.

'We forgot about crossin' th' fuckin' space between here and th' hangar,' Shayne says.

'We can't give up now,' Jackie says. His eyes dart back and forth; he spins around, examining the room, as if an escape tunnel's entrance will magically appear in the floor, leading them straight over to the hangar, perhaps with snacks on the way. 'There!'

Kochanski turns. There's no escape tunnel. There is, however, an alternative... of a sort.

* * *

'Names?'

'Jason Vaughan, Kerry Shayne, Riley Jackson.' Vaughan sounds like he's recited this a million times before, and probably has.

'Destination?'

'Europa.'

'Reason for travelling?'

'One of the connectors has burnt out on the O/G unit.' Jackie manages to inject a certain amount of urgency into the statement, inserting that hidden level of meaning: _And if you don't let us go get a replacement, you're going to slowly asphyxiate, your face turning blue as your oxygen-less blood futilely attempts to sustain life within your soon-to-be corpse._

Kochanski wonders if she isn't cracking up somewhat. Maybe it's the concussion.

'Alright. Just one other thing...'

'Mmmm?' Shayne sounds like he's going to rip the guard's head off and do something obscene down his neck. Kochanski's brain attempts to give her detailed, varied possibilities as to what this might be. She manages to ignore it.

'What on Io is that laundry basket for?'

'Just some stuff one of the crew left in the dryer by mistake, we're dropping it off for him.' This time Jackie's hidden meaning is, _If some captain has left his jocks in our dryer, you're not going to get to peek._

'Can I check?'

Kochanski holds her breath.

The lid comes off.

Apparently the layer of socks, singlets and especially the lacy G-strings are enough to deter any further comment from the guard. The lid goes back on. Kochanski breathes again. She's getting used to her breath stopping for whatever reason now. The jolty movement begins again as the basket is carried past the checkpoint, through the hangar -- she can hear voices, footsteps on tarmac, the stentorian voice of the PA announcer asking that the runway be cleared for an outgoing -- and up a ramp.

Finally, finally, the lid comes off again, a hand paws through the layers of someone else's underwear, and Kochanski rises from the laundry like Venus from the waves, although Venus probably never had a G-string on her head.

'I never,' she says, 'ever,' she says, 'want to do that again.'

Three faces grin at her.

'Fuckin' _awesome_,' Shayne says.

'I think I've put my back out,' Vaughan says, rubbing it.

Jackie just grins and goes into the cockpit, which seats one. The cargo bay, where they are huddled, is barely big enough for them, but there's no way Kochanski's getting back in that basket. She's never going to make fun of Dave's claustrophobia again, not even behind his back. And as soon as she gets _Wildfire_ back, she's going to instruct Sasha to take her to a planet with a huge zero-gee football dome, and she's going to lie on her back in the middle of the grass and pretend that she's never been stuffed in a laundry basket in her life.

The engines rumbling throughout the small ship are comforting, and remind her of home: the _Dwarf_ is always shaking with some sort of vibration, however tiny, and it's like being rocked in a cradle, and Kochanski puts her head down on the pile of someone else's underwear and falls asleep.


	11. Final Keys

Of course, Kochanski has to get back in the damn basket eventually. Vaughan wakes her when they reach Europan airspace - it takes a little while, despite the fact that the moons both orbit Jupiter, because they're currently on opposite sides of the behemoth of a planet -- and points out to her that they still have this end of Customs to get through, as it were. Not that Customs is a particularly strict business for such a short moon-hop; she'll have more trouble getting back _off_ Europa, considering she'll be appearing to steal what is, for all intents and purposes, one of the Space Corps's finest experimental ships.

So it's back into the basket, buried under the layer of clothing that may or may not be thick enough to properly conceal her, and bump-bump-bump down the ramp after the landing, which is smooth enough for her to congratulate Jackie through the wicker. Bump-bump-bump through the cold concrete space of another craft hangar, then stop at the checkpoint. The same questions as when they left Io, more or less. With any luck the story will hold up, even if the computers are checked; these three, Vaughan has assured her, know what they're doing when it comes to computers, and Kochanski doesn't doubt it for a second.

'Looks like a heavy load you got there,' the guard says in the drawling tone of a man who knows he lives on a moon fuelled by machismo and testosterone. 'Mind liftin' the lid?'

Jackie sighs, lifts the lid. 'It ain't heavy, just awkward,' he says, lifting something out -- probably a G-string, and Kochanski's really starting to pity whoever's underwear this is, the way it's being flashed around -- and showing it to the guard.

'Mmmm. Right. Go on, get a move on. We don't want all of Io to asphyxiate while you three're moochin' around with your thumbs up your butts.' He leers. Kochanski can almost hear it. 'God forbid the Pussy Palace should go down _that_ way.'

Jackie bites back some remark -- Kochanski hears the thump as Shayne's foot impacts with Jackie's ankle -- and then they're moving again, quickly now, across some smooth surface, down a ramp, a pause (she can hear them whispering but not what they're saying), then a door squeaks open and they enter a stairwell, bumping downwards one flight through a smell of mildew and stale cigarette smoke. Down one flight and out through a squeaky door, then along a tiled corridor -- she can tell from the slapping of their sneakers on the floor -- and then another door and another stairwell, stopping on the landing at the top.

Shayne lifts the lid.

'Are ya okay?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I think so.' She has lines on her cheek from leaning against the wicker. 'Where are we?'

'We went under the hangar and came up the other side to avoid questions.' Jackie reaches into the basket to help her unfold. 'You're on your own from here. As far as we can tell we're outside a door that will lead you right to the _Wildfire_.'

Kochanski realises they're missing someone. 'Where's Jayv- Vaughan?'

'You'll find out in about two minutes if all goes to plan. When the base electrics fail all the doors open so that people can get out, in case it's a fire or something like that. That's how you get out of the base. Getting out of the dome is another matter, but as far as we can tell the computer should be able to manage a handshake and there're emergency controls to avoid crashes... one way or another it'll open.' Jackie's face looks calm, but he speaks quickly, and Kochanski just nods a lot.

'Thank you. All of you.' She smiles. 'I don't really know why you chose to help me and risk yourselves, but thank you.'

'It's what we're good at,' Shayne says. 'Hurry.'

Kochanski goes to the door, glances back at them. 'Thank you.'

'Send us a postcard.' Jackie's twirling a g-string distractedly between his fingers. 'You've got about a minute.'

Kochanski peeks around the edge of the door and spots the _Wildfire_ about twenty yards away, with nobody near it. The cargo bay door is open and she can run, despite her body's complaints about being doubles up and stuffed into a laundry basket for so long. She sprints across the hangar floor, up the landing ramp, slapping the button to close it at the same time as she calls to Sasha that she's back.

'Who's that?' says a familiar voice that isn't Sasha's.

_No, no, not now!_ Kochanski mentally yells as her left calf threatens to knot up. She staggers forward to the cockpit, sees the glimmer of the silver flightsuit, but already knows who's in her seat.

'Sasha! Initiate emergency takeoff procedures!'

'What the hell?' asks Ace Rimmer.

Kochanski, her body automatically moving to drag him from the seat, has time to think, _What kind of idiot can't even get into the right spaceship? This is _myWildfire_, not his! _But he's fighting back and though she started with the advantage of surprise, Ace has his height and weight on his side. The ship's engines are starting up but she needs to engage the ignition manually, and there's this bloody great idiot between her and the controls, heroically trying to stop what he probably thinks is some madwoman from getting anywhere near the console.

So she ignores five years of judo and jujitsu training, and punches his washboard stomach instead. It hurts her hand like sticking it into a fire, and it feels like she's broken a couple of fingers, but he makes a satisfying, '_Ooofff_!' sound and doubles over. She falls back two steps, tugging on his collar, then flips him over her hip and into the cargo bay, where he crashes against a couple of crates and lies still, groaning.

'Welcome back, Kris,' Sasha says, giggling.

'Let's go.' Kochanski slides into her seat and winces as she knocks her right hand. Something's definitely broken, but that doesn't matter right now. She engages the ignition left-handed and listens to the familiar shift in the engine sound from an idle to a ready roar. She's not sure what will happen to Ace, back there, but there's only one safety harness in this craft and it's buckled around her. Bad luck.

The lights outside suddenly snap off and the hangar is plunged into darkness. The giant doors roll open, as promised, and Sasha taxis _Wildfire_ towards the doors. There isn't anyone between them and the doors, which is a good thing, because Kochanski devoutly doesn't want to add squishing someone to her already extensive list of crimes.

'We're getting good at narrow escapes, aren't we?' she says to the computer.

'A little too experienced for my tastes,' Sasha replies.

Takeoff is harder from a rolling start, since there's usually an angled ramp to blast off from. The ship, all grace in the air, is like a waddling wombat moving across the tarmac outside. Kochanski can't hear the shouts of the people outside, but there are a couple of them running towards the _Wildfire_. Then she spots an empty baggage truck, the tiny ramp onto the back the only thing with any sort of incline in the area.

'Sasha, the truck. Will it help?'

They bump onto the short ramp, the front wheels barely lifting as the wings shear off the sides of the truck like a can-opener. There's a groan from the cargo bay but Kochanski ignores it, gripping the steering yoke left-handed, her right hand useless in her lap, sending flames up to her elbow every time she moves it. Sasha's still in charge but Kochanski has to hit the next ignition...

'_Now_!' Sasha yells, and Kochanski's hand darts to the right control unerringly, without even looking.

_Wildfire_ bumps into the air, engine whining, back wheels glancing off the cab of the truck. Looking down, Kochanski can see the engineers waving their arms and yelling. They know this takeoff isn't meant to be happening right now, but with the electrics down, there's nothing they can do. Kochanski just hopes that Vaughan and the others aren't discovered. She can hear bumping in the cargo bay as the one bit of cargo that isn't secured (the one wearing the stupid foil flightsuit, that is) slides towards the back. Once again, bad luck.

The translucent dome has a gap in it. Kochanski hopes it's the way out and not just a particularly clean bit. She swings the steering yoke and Sasha says, 'It's okay, let me,' and banks them left, up, and Kochanski hits the final ignition far later than she should've. The sudden boost to the engine sends them hurtling forward, sideswiping the edge of the hole, Ace is screaming at her from the cargo bay, her broken right hand whiplashes out of her lap and smacks against the armrest, and before she can say, _Oh shit, not another prolonged period of unconsciousness,_ darkness takes her.

* * *

'Are you all right now?'

Kochanski recognises Ace's voice. The white noise in the background is Sasha anxiously asking the same question, over the rumble of the ship's engines. Her hand feels numb, and she hopes it's due to drugs of some description and not because it's fallen off or something. She can see the cargo bay roof and little else until Ace moves into view, hair flopping in his face.

'My hand feels better... did you do something?'

'Just a shot of anaesthetic so I could set the bones without disturbing you. Lucky the computer's so brilliantly good at steering, or we'd be back on Europa and you'd be being court-martialled.' The twinkle in his eyes fades when Kochanski glares at him.

'Sasha. Her name is Sasha.'

'Sasha, right, sorry,' Ace says hastily. 'But I don't know your name.' He looks like he does, actually, and the way he nods self-satisfiedly at her reply seems to prove it.

'Kochanski. _Kristine_ Kochanski. Not Karen, or Kaz, or anything else. Just Kristine.'

'Ace Rimmer.' He moves to shake her hand then remembers she can't use her right and his hand hangs in mid-air like a limp flag before he withdraws it. She's encountered other Aces in other dimensions and has never met one this self-conscious. 'So, Kristine... what are you doing with my ship?'

'This is _my_ ship, right, Sasha?' Kochanski doesn't wait for the affirmative from the computer to continue. 'You might have _a_ ship, but this one's mine.'

'I'm _mine_, actually,' Sasha says.

'Fair enough,' Kochanski says. 'But I can see why you'd make that mistake. There wasn't another _Wildfire_ in the Europa base hangar. I heard that one was stolen from there. They thought mine was it.' She's talking to herself more than to Ace by now, but he's still listening avidly. 'So they took it back there and you thought it was yours as well. Which means one's still missing, but we've still got this one... except I need it more than you do,' she adds, returning her attention to Ace.

'Wait a minute. Why? My mission is to save the world from all kinds of nasties. What can you be planning to do that's more important than that?'

'Find true love,' Kochanski says. She sits up. 'So, just how many nasties have you ever rescued people from?' Ace's face is touched for just a second by uncertainty, and in that second Kochanski _knows_. Coincidence has just brushed her life yet again. And she reaches out to grasp Ace's wig and pull it off.

'I know who you are and where you come from.'

'I'm from Io, living on Europa temporarily while they get the _Wildfire_ project going...'

'You're a weaselly maggot who gets -- got -- a lucky break in three million years' time and ended up jumping back here by accident. You're not one of the original Aces, you're a fraud.' Kochanski laughs. 'But I know the Dave Lister who comes from the same dimension as you.'

Her only response is a long, beleaguered sigh.


	12. Final Laments

'Are you _sure_ that I'm from the dimension you call yours now?' Rimmer asks. Rimmer -- it's hard to decide if she should call him 'Ace' or 'Rimmer', but without his wig on it's just too difficult to envision him as the dashing hero. Hell, inept as he is, it's difficult enough to accept him as a hero with it on. Having settled into a less taxing flight path after the jump, Kochanski is seated in the cockpit, Rimmer perched on a crate lashed to the back of her chair. Both of them are squinting -- there's a star going supernova not far away, and while they're out of range of any potential damage, it is still searingly bright. 'There are all those other dimensions, in this Universe and the others. Are you sure I'm from yours?'

'Trust me, Rimmer -- there could only be one idiot as idiotic as you.'

His nostrils flare, although she can only just see them in her peripheral vision as he hangs over the back of her chair. 'I'm insulted.'

'I'm not surprised. Look -- let me prove it. Do you know the dimensional code for your dimension?'

He gives it, but adds, 'Wouldn't each Ace have a different code for the same dimension, given that they've all _started_ in different dimensions?'

'It's hard to say, since no two _Wildfire_s have ever been in the same dimension at the same time,' says Sasha, 'but the laws that govern the variability between dimensions state that each dimension is the same except for one vital difference in one individual's life that altered his life henceforth. What plays out in each is simply the life as it would have happened given the presence or absence of one variable event. Therefore, logically all the Aces, no matter where their origin, would have numbered each dimension the same way -- so Dimension One for one Ace might be his home dimension, yet be the eighty-first that another Ace visited, but he still numbered it as One, for whatever reason.'

_Blink?_ goes Kochanski.

'Sash, I'm sure that's a perfectly viable theory, but I really don't understand it.'

Sasha rolls her eyes and nods. 'I didn't think so. It's a theory that's taken a lot of time to work out, and the truth is that I don't know how it works. Oh, and by the way, Rimmer, that code you gave me matches the one for the dimension I met Kris in.'

Rimmer rolls _his_ eyes and taps Kochanski's arm. 'Can you put _Wildfire_ on autopilot for a while? I think we need to talk.'

'I suppose so. There isn't anything lethal in our immediate vicinity, is there Sasha?'

'No, but I don't know exactly where we are, either. I made an uncoordinated jump to get away from that other dimension, and I'll need about half an hour to establish our coordinates and whether we're anywhere near this dimension's version of JayVee, or you, or... whoever.'

'All right. I'll be talking to Rimmer. Call me if you need me.' Kochanski unbuckles her harness and gestures for Rimmer to precede her into the midsection. She pulls the curtain between the bay and the cockpit closed, shutting out the nova's light somewhat.

They settle as comfortably as they can, given that Kochanski has replaced Ace's opulent double bed -- an unnecessary extravagance -- with a futon and some pillows. The sleeping arrangements will have to change if there's going to be two of them for any especially long time. Maybe they can find a derelict and fit out the cargo bay as temporary sleeping quarters.

She realises she doesn't know what she's going to do with Rimmer now that she's stuck with him here, and clicks her tongue. There's a faint indefinable smell in the air that bugs her for a minute before she realises it's his aftershave, and then she has to pull her mind together because the smell reminds her of home.

He's looking at her, waiting for her to speak.

'Like Sasha said, our exact position is unknown. We'll have to figure that out before we do anything else, and there's nowhere for you to sleep. We'll have to take turns piloting and resting.'

Rimmer nods, looking at her intently.

'What?'

'How's Listy?'

The question catches her off guard. 'Dave? He's fine. He's back home.'

'What's he doing with himself these days?'

Kochanski laughs. 'Himself? More like what's he doing with- oh, shit.'

Rimmer nods. 'I thought he might've found someone by now. So, who's the lucky lady?' He attempts to ask this in the Ace voice and succeeds to some extent, although the hamster's squeak is still present in the cougar's growl.

Kochanski swallows. 'Um... it's not a woman.'

'Lister's hooked up with a _man_?'

The temptation to say, _Well, we assume he's a man, anyway_ is great, but Kochanski beats it back with a stick. 'It's a long story.'

'I like long stories.'

'There was a dimensional tear and I met your dimension's Lister and got stuck in his dimension and we found _Red Dwarf_, which had been dismantled by nanobots, and Kryten persuaded them to put it back together and they resurrected the crew as well and so another version of you was there as well and we all got put in the Brig and then we escaped and now we're flying around sort of headed for Earth but maybe not really.'

'...that wasn't too long... so who's Lister shagging?'

'Well, technically speaking, you,' Kochanski says.

Rimmer's facial hue goes through almost the entire spectrum before settling on a pink blush. '_What_?'

'He's not a 'what', he's a 'whom', and it's the alternate version of you.'

'Ah.' Rimmer nods slowly. 'So, in fact, Lister is sleeping with an alternate version of me, and I assume he's enjoying it.'

Kochanski stops her mouth from mentioning whipped cream, late-night showers, moaning, pet names, the scanner table, and several other incriminating incidents, and just nods.

'How long have they been together?'

'I've no idea, sorry. Over two years now, I think.'

'Ah.'

'Is that all you've got to say?'

'What do you want me to say? That it should've been me? That I should've stayed in my own dimension and tried for what he's got now?' Rimmer sighs. 'No matter whether I stay or go, I'm still the loser.'

Kochanski blinks. 'You... wish it was you?'

'There's no use crying over spilled milk.' Rimmer shakes his head. 'I never had a chance.'

'I think you did.'

'Let's pretend I didn't, just for argument's sake, all right?' Rimmer folds his arms and gives her a look that she interprets correctly as _No further questions, your Honour_. 'What about you? Love life didn't work out, so you had to run away from it all?'

'Sort of... one of those things that just...' Her flippant reply runs out mid-sentence and, unexpectedly, she feels her throat tighten. 'I...'

His voice softens. 'I didn't mean to upset you. Is something wrong?'

Kochanski is crying, tears snaking their way down her cheeks one by one, her shoulders shaking. She tries to think of a quick and easy way to explain the situation, but fails. Rimmer is hovering with a tissue pulled out of the sleeve of his shirt. He has shed the outer suit, a fact for which she is profoundly grateful, as her own reflection is not really what she wants to see right now. She takes the tissue, blows her nose, dabs her eyes with the clean corner.

'Sorry.'

'No, I'm sorry. I obviously said the wrong thing.'

'You were right, though. I'm out here looking for love. Shayne... Shayne died, and...'

'He was your partner?'

Gender bending again. 'No. Yes. Shayne's her surname. She is -- was -- a woman.'

Rimmer blinks. 'Isn't _anyone_ from your dimension straight?'

Kochanski gives him a pointed look and he replays the sentence in his head, then sighs. 'All right, evidently not.'

'No, actually, the Cat is.'

'Cat! You've met Cat, of course, I'd almost forgotten to ask. How is he? And Kryten?'

'Kryten's a neurotic idiot but at least he's not as much of a pain in the bum as he used to be on _Starbug_. The Cat's met a lovely girl named Jodie Vaughan -- JayVee -- and they have twin babies, Liam and Leah. I'm the odd one out now I don't have Shayne.'

'And you found the _Wildfire_ and took it to look for an alternate version of her?'

'Right! It was abandoned in space, we found a dead light bee. I think Dave thought it was yours. But it must've been a different Ace. I'm sure Sasha knows.' She sighs. 'I guess I really should give it up to you. Even if yours was stolen, by rights it belongs more to you than to me.' She doesn't mean a bit of it and is pleased when Rimmer shakes his head.

'No. _Wildfire_ is yours now. Besides, what could be more heroic than your quest -- travelling across space, time, death and reality to find true love? It's more noble than anything I've ever done!'

'What's the noblest thing you've ever done?'

Rimmer thinks for a bit. 'Well, there was the time I changed the toilet roll when it got down to the last two bits instead of leaving it for Listy to change.'

There is probably a very specific, if inaudible to the human ear, sound that rolling eyes make. Whatever it is, Kochanski's eyes are making it now. She shakes her head as well. 'You mean that even since you left _Starbug_ you haven't really done anything as Ace?'

Rimmer has the good grace to look ashamed. 'I think it's my natural cowardice, ma'am.' And winces at his own words. 'I'm just not cut out to be Ace Rimmer. You'd probably do a better job than me.'

Kochanski laughs. 'But I'd look ridiculous in the wig.'

The sound of Rimmer's laughter joins hers, and Sasha's voice from the cockpit agrees. 'You're definitely not the blonde type, Kris. Brunette is your thing.'

'Sasha! Have you been listening in?'

'Bit hard not to. I could switch off the comms system but I'd rather eavesdrop.'

'Is she always like that?' Rimmer asks. 'My computer was too busy flirting with me to be a smartalec.'

'I think Sasha's too busy being a smartalec to flirt with anyone. Besides, she's had me as a pilot for months now and she doesn't swing that way.'

'True. I'm strictly a pervy Ace fancier,' Sasha says. 'But since you're not _my_ Ace, and you're not really _any_ Ace, I'm prepared to make an exception. _Rimsy_.'

Rimmer winces, but recovers quickly. 'Damn. I was just getting used to a bunch of pixels and wires trying to have sex with me, too. I'll just have to miss out.'

Kochanski stretches out on her futon. 'You get used to it.'

'I've been used to it for years.'

'I don't want to know.'

'I'm sure you don't.' Rimmer grabs two of her pillows and lies them together lengthways, making a rough mattress, stretching out beside her but not too close. 'So your exact goal is to find an alternate version of your... Shayne, was it?'

'Yes.'

'And you think that she'll be in love with you too?'

'I'm going to keep trying until I find one who is. Or will be. Or something, I don't know. Or until I run out of time.'

'Time?'

'I promised the others I'd be back in a year.' She remembers the midsection of _Starbug_, Dave and Rimmer - the other Rimmer -- canoodling at one end of the scanner table, Cat and Jayv on one side, Jayv nursing Leah while the Cat burps Liam, Kryten bringing them dinner while she sits opposite Jayv, the empty space beside herself almost physically painful to think about, the last night on _Starbug_. 'I miss them, too... but I miss her so much more...' The tears have returned, coming thick and fast this time. She gives herself up to them, accepting the handful of tissues that Rimmer digs from the box beside the futon, and when he wraps his arms around her and rocks her, she lets him comfort her, crying herself out and then falling into a dreamless sleep.


	13. Final Magics

Kochanski wakes up extremely aware of Rimmer's arms around her, of the smell of his cologne and under that his own masculine scent. She wonders why he smells like that, being a hologram, then decides it's not hers to reason why and proceeds to grapple with the intricacies of extricating herself without waking him up. Shamefully enough it's a task she's had a fair bit of practice at (although, thankfully, never before with Rimmer), and she is pleased when she's finally standing and he's still asleep, snoring lightly, arms wrapped around the place where she isn't.

She pushes through the curtain into the cockpit. Sasha glares at her from one of the three main display monitors.

'What?'

'What were you doing in there all that time? Everything went quiet!'

'You don't need to worry about silence, just rusty gate noises,' Kochanski says absently, flopping into her seat. 'We were asleep, he's still asleep, how long has it been?'

'Eight hours. I've got a lock on this dimension's JayVee, if you want to go visiting. Are you going to take what's-his-face with you, or stuff him in the cargo bay and pretend he's a crate of tuna if anyone asks?'

Kochanski giggles. 'I'd better take him with me. They might have some use for a superhero.'

Sasha _pfffttts_ at her and nods downwards at the stellar map grid. 'Care to check our co-ords, or are you satisfied that I know how to do my job?'

'I'm sure you've got it perfectly right,' Kochanski says. 'How far away are we?'

'Check the grid. It's an S3 planet, approximately the size of Pluto, a smidgen closer to its local sun than Earth is to the Sun. You'd better pack your bikini and sunscreen.'

* * *

Kochanski lands _Wildfire_ not too close to the gigantic bonfire that's blazing at the edge of one of the forests that seem to cover most of the planet's surface. The people she spots dancing around the fire don't seem to notice the ship at all -- it's odd, but Kochanski figures the sound of the fire is probably drowning everything else out.

'They look a bit wild... are you sure this is a good idea?' Rimmer asks, looking at the image on the monitor.

'Rimmer, don't be a coward,' Kochanski and Sasha say in unison. 'Now go and change that uniform shirt for a T-shirt. There's a spare one that should fit you in the cargo bay,' Kochanski adds.

Rimmer hasn't forgotten that she outranks him and goes without a murmur. Kochanski is already in T-shirt and jeans -- experience has made her realise that anything more formal is uncomfortable to sit in for any length of time. She looks out through the front shield at the forest, noticing pine trees and other trees that she's pretty sure are eucalypts.

'Do you think they look wild?' Sasha asks.

Kochanski considers this for a minute. 'I think they look like a bunch of uni students having a party,' she says. 'But I'm taking a rad pistol just in case.' She keeps one under the right-hand console in case of emergency; pulling it out, she dials it down to the lowest setting and sticks it into her belt, draping the side of her shirt over it. 'There. Now I can protect Rimmer if he needs it.'

'Are you talking about me?' Rimmer whines, walking back in on the two of them laughing.

''Course not,' Sasha says. 'Now, Kris, take care out there? Rimsy... don't fall over your feet.'

Rimmer snorts and ducks back through the curtain, and Sasha and Kochanski exchange a glance and begin giggling again.

* * *

Moving through undergrowth silently is harder than the movies make it look. Kochanski tries to tell herself that the people out there probably aren't a threat, given that one of them is an alternate version of JayVee, who would only hurt a fly if it interrupted her during sex. After all, all the other versions of her so far have been nice and helpful, even if they're just as flaky as the original at times. But there's a first time for everything, and Kochanski figures this might just be the first dimension she's come across where JayVee is a homicidal Simulant.

Rimmer scuffles through the leaves behind her, whining about the cold.

'We'll be able to warm up at the fire,' Kochanski says tersely.

'What if they're cannibals? We'll be warming up _in_ the fire, and that's not really what I saw myself doing when we landed on this planet. I don't want to be made into Rimmer schnitzel.'

'Who'd eat you? Too scrawny.'

'It's _muscle_.'

Kochanski turns around and punches his bicep. Hard. Rimmer clutches it and glares at her. 'I don't care if it's muscle or meringue, be quiet! We're getting close and I'd like to give them a good first impression.'

They walk from the trees -- Rimmer still rubbing his arm and scowling -- into the glow of the fire. The dancers have stopped. Kochanski doesn't see any particularly threatening postures, just mildly curious faces, a few shocked. There are quite a few people around the fire, children and adults. A group of four sit off to one side, each holding a musical instrument. The drummer is poised with his hands over his hide drum, as if paused by a remote control. All of them are wearing funny clothes -- most of the women are in long dresses, while the men are all in tunics and trousers. They're all barefoot, and Kochanski can see why - the ground is worn smooth here, as if it's the place they spend the most time. The sound of the fire is more than enough to have masked their approach, and with the music as well, it's no wonder they didn't hear Rimmer's whinging.

'Hello. Welcome to the Circle.' One of the women steps forward. Blonde hair. The right voice. It's Jayv all right. 'Whoever you are, step into the light and be welcomed.'

Kochanski steps forward. Rimmer manages a shuffle. He's staring at the women. Kochanski elbows him and he stands to attention, but mercifully doesn't salute. 'I'm Kristine Kochanski, and this is Arnold Rimmer.'

'I am Jodevea, Leader of the Circle. You are welcome to join us for dancing and feasting. Tonight the moon will be eclipsed. We will watch for its return.' She sweeps them a little curtsey back, and Kochanski finds herself returning it. Rimmer stands awkwardly, and jumps when one of the children, a dark-haired little girl, comes over to him and slips her hand into his.

'Come and dance,' she offers -- she must only be five or six, but she drags him over to the fire and he goes without protest. The drummer starts tapping out a rhythm and the sound of a flute joins it, and then singing, not just from the band but from most of the gathering. Jodevea takes Kochanski's arm and leads her around, introducing her to people. They each kiss her on the cheek and welcome her to the Circle. The fifth name she hears is _Kierea_; the woman has dark blonde hair and is patiently teaching another little girl the steps of the dance.

'Welcome,' she says, dropping the girl's hands and taking Kochanski's, pressing her lips against Kochanski's cheek. 'Where are you from?'

Jodevea looks ashamed that she hasn't already asked. 'Yes, Kristine, where do you live?'

Kochanski isn't sure if they'll understand, but doesn't want to talk down to them. 'I live in space, on a spaceship. I'm just visiting other places.'

Kierea laughs. Something is different about her voice, and Kochanski figures it out when she speaks again: no accent, no roughness from smoking or anything else. 'Ah, we know what that can be like.'

'Mama, dance with me!' the little girl demands, tugging at Kierea's skirt.

'In a minute, Juni. No, better -- go and help 'Viva teach Arnold to dance.'

Juni scampers off to do her mother's bidding. Kochanski watches Kierea looking after her fondly as she insinuates herself between the first little girl -- 'Viva? is it short for something? -- and Rimmer, and starts bossing them around as only a four-year-old can.

'She's your daughter?'

Kierea looks startled. 'She belongs to all of us, Kristine. All the little ones do. We all take care of them. They are, after all, our future.'

'Kierea, don't confuse her too much,' Jodevea says. 'Kristine, I should show you where we live before anything else. We'll have to be quick... the eclipse will begin soon, and I've got to be back here for it.'

'Is that part of being Leader?' Kochanski asks as they move around the fire and through a scattering of trees down onto something she can't see very well, but which feels like sand. The further they get from the fire, the louder another roaring gets, and she realises they're on a beach. _Way to go, Brilliant. Sand plus waves equals beach. You're so smart._

'It's most of being Leader. I'm the one who leads rituals, like the one tonight to honour the moon.'

'You're Wiccan?'

'No... Wiccan implies a narrower set of values than we have.' Jodevea stops walking. 'Can you see all right? I'm sorry, I should've asked sooner, we could've brought a torch.'

Given what she's seen so far, Kochanski knows _torch_ doesn't mean anything containing a globe and batteries. 'No, I'm fine. Are we nearly there?'

'Yes. A few more minutes.' Jodevea starts walking again. 'We don't name what we do. We just do what feels right. Twelve years ago there was a spaceship, and it was attacked by Simulants. The survivors are here, and have never been attacked, except sometimes by wild animals. This way is right for us because there is no unnatural death, no torture, and not even any old age... yet, at least.'

Jodevea doesn't look any older than JayVee. 'So how old were you when the ship was attacked?'

'I was fourteen. Kierea was fourteen and a half. We were the oldest of the survivors... we put the younger children into stasis on the ship and programmed it to land on the nearest S3 planet. Our parents were in the EPPs -- sorry, External Preservation Pods -- suited up and battling the Simulants. They told us to go and we went. The last thing my mother ever said to me was, 'Jodie, look after the little ones.' It's what I've been doing ever since, especially now that we have new little ones to take care of.'

'It must have been so hard...'

'We did what we had to. And here we are.' Jodevea pushes something away in front of them, and a mellow light reveals an ivy curtain hiding a metal corridor. 'Welcome to the _Clio_.'

Kochanski steps inside. A white bar of light moves over her. There is a faint beep from somewhere. 'What was that?'

'Detects non-humans and fries them.'

'It didn't work on the Simulants?'

'Oh, it did. They besieged _Clio_ for two months. The adults were trying to get out and get us some food from a derelict. It was doing so that distracted the Simulants long enough for us to get away -- _Clio_'s not fast enough to outrun them, so we had to outwit them.' Jodevea's face is calm but her voice wobbles, and Kochanski instinctively hugs her.

The ship is laid out much like any other ship -- overgrown Drive Room at the front, a cargo area filled now with fruit and vegetables harvested from the land, the sleeping quarters the only part really recognisable as a spaceship, but strangely musty-smelling and deserted-looking.

'We sleep outside. Our houses are on the land side of the ship. It's unfair to try and fit everyone into the ship -- there are too many of us with the children -- and though we tried a rota for sleeping indoors sometimes and outdoors sometimes, people complained too much about returning to outdoors after the luxury of indoors. Davoud's got plans to convert the quarters into a winter sleeping space where we'll all be on the floor, but then he's been planning it for eight years and hasn't _done_ anything yet.'

Kochanski remembers Davoud from outside. Dark-skinned, hair cropped short, no prizes for guessing whose alternate _he_ is. She hasn't met everyone yet, though, and wonders who her alternate is, what her name is.

'We'd better go back. I can show you the rest in the morning. Unless you and Arnold would rather sleep? We've rested all day to be ready for tonight, but you might need to sleep.'

'Oh... no. We've been asleep for some time. You tend to lose track of day and night a bit, travelling in space. If you don't mind us joining you, we'd love to,' Kochanski says, thinking _Well, I know _I_ want to, and Rimmer is just going to have to live with it._

Jodevea curtseys again, a shallower dip this time, more like an extended nod than anything else. 'Your presence would be most welcome.'


	14. Final Nights

The sea is a dark blotch to their left as they walk back along the beach, with faint white marks indicating the presence of the waves. Kochanski is pleased that her vision is adjusting to the darkness so quickly, but she's got nothing on Jodevea, who paces ahead as if it were broad daylight. _She_ certainly doesn't trip over the chunk of driftwood. The sand is a lot wetter than Kochanski expected; water soaks through her T-shirt immediately.

'Are you all right?'

'Undignified and wet, but yes,' Kochanski says, letting Jodevea pull her to her feet. Despite her attempts to bluff it off, she's shivering within seconds, and Jodevea hustles her back towards the fire.

'What happened?' Rimmer demands as soon as he sees her. He still has 'Viva and Juni firmly attached, one to each arm. 'You're saturated!'

'Fell over,' Kochanski says, teeth chattering. Jodevea pushes her as close to the fire as she can bear, then hurries off. 'Sand's wet. There's a ship.'

'A ship? JMC?'

Kochanski nods. '_Clio_.'

Rimmer sucks in a breath. 'The missing one. The _Marie Celeste_ of Deep Space.'

'Think so.'

Jodevea comes back with an armful of fabric and, without so much as asking, reefs Kochanski's wet T-shirt off, then unhooks her bra and yanks that off as well. Kochanski hastily folds her arms across her breasts, her face burning. Rimmer looks away immediately, but she can sense that he wants to look.

'Unfold your arms. I can't put this on you if you're like that.' Kochanski drops her arms and Jodevea drops something over her head, a great mass of material that is warm and dry. 'Take your jeans off too.' Kochanski obeys, folding the denim so that the wet knees are uppermost, sticking the rad pistol into one of the legs (and hoping it won't go off while they're dancing). 'Viva lets go of Rimmer long enough to move Kochanski's clothes closer to the fire. 'Better?'

'Much,' Kochanski admits, although her cheeks' colour is still due to embarrassment and not the proximity of the fire. She isn't sure if any of the others around the fire looked - the musicians didn't miss a beat, but that doesn't mean anything. 'Thank you.'

'Welcome.' The finishing touch is a belt, another length of material, which Jodevea knots around Kochanski's waist, cinching the oversized dress in so that it flares out over her hips.

'Pretty lady,' Juni pipes up. Jodevea smiles and picks her up, disentangling her fingers from Rimmer's.

'Juniper, say hello to Kristine.'

'Hewwo.'

'Aviva, say hello to Kristine.'

''Lo.' Aviva looks up at Rimmer and lifts her free hand and Rimmer picks her up, sitting her on his hip, looking simultaneously uncomfortable and resigned. Aviva snuggles her head against his neck and he smiles. Sort of.

'You two are very welcome to talk to everyone. We don't turn people away. You're not the first to show up like this - our musicians over there came about four years ago, and they decided to stay. But I can't keep talking -- the eclipse will start soon and I need to prepare a few more things.' Jodevea puts Juni back down and Juni attaches herself to Kochanski as Jodevea hurries around the fire towards the musicians.

'What's happening tonight?' Kochanski asks the little ones.

Juni is unforthcoming, but Aviva, from her vantage position in Rimmer's arms, says, ''Clipse.'

'What else?'

'Ritual for Mother Moon.'

'Cake,' Juni says.

'Cake,' Aviva agrees.

Davoud joins them, detaching Juni from Kochanski's leg and cuddling her -- Juni's eyes are bright as she looks at the fire over Davoud's shoulder. 'Do you have any questions that the girls can't answer?'

'I just don't want to disrupt things here. It all sounds serious,' Kochanski admits.

'It is, but don't be afraid of ruining anything. Jodevea's in charge and does most of the ritual parts. The rest is dancing, contemplation, and eating.'

'Cake,' Juni says.

'Yes, Juni, cake. We found a stand of maple trees on the other side of Great Lake -- sorry, that's the inland freshwater lake, it's that way...' Davoud points off into the forest. 'At first we were clueless, but then Felisiana remembered something she'd read in _Little House on the Prairie_ and we worked out how to make maple sugar... it's different, but it's still sweet, and it appeals to the children.'

Juni and Aviva both start wriggling to get down and, when released, dash off towards a group of three or four other children playing on the edge of the forest.

'So what do you base your rituals on? Jodevea said you weren't Wiccan.'

'No way. Kierea used to be very strictly Catholic - she'd have a fit if you said it. If you must define it by Earth religions, it's just plain pagan -- not-Christian. But then, it's a lot of fun, and it's less of a religion than something to do to mark the passing of the seasons, of time, so that we don't forget.' A bell rings over near the musicians, and Davoud jumps. 'Ah. That's the Call to the Circle. You're welcome to join us... the children stay out of the Circle because they're too restless, and they can always use an extra eye over there if you don't want to join us.'

Rimmer sidles over to the children and sits down with them, but Kochanski lets Davoud draw her into the group gathering around the fire. All the adults except for Jodevea and the musicians are joining hands in one big circle. Kierea and Davoud hold their hands out and Kochanski joins the circle between them. A slow drumbeat begins and they start circling the fire.

* * *

Afterwards, Kochanski can never quite remember all the details of what happens. As the eclipse begins and the moon is slowly blotted out, people pull flaming branches from the fire and carry them to the beach, quenching them in the sea. Others carry buckets of sand up from the beach and pour them over the fire. Kierea hands Kochanski a branch at one point and she carries it down to the sea, dousing the flames as the others do.

Jodevea does a lot of talking at one point, as Kierea tips the last bucket of earth over the fire, as the last point of light overhead is blotted out. She laments the moon's passing and drops to her knees in front of the dead fire. The rest of the adults follow suit. Kochanski can feel a warm breeze rising off the sea, rustling the leaves of the trees around them and sounding like the voices of the dead whispering. She doesn't know why she thinks this but it brings goosebumps up on the back of her neck. One of the children starts crying and she can hear Rimmer's voice, soothing and calm. The drum has slowed.

There is a sudden hush over everything. Everyone is looking up at the moon, shadowed but visible as a faint outline. Kochanski can hardly even hear her own breathing. A faint sound rises -- Jodevea has begun chanting. 'Return, Mother, and bring us your light.' Other voices join hers, repeating the same phrase. The drum begins again in time with the chant. Kochanski isn't sure when she joins in but only realises she's chanting when Jodevea raises her hand and everyone stops.

The faintest sliver of light shows at the very edge of the moon. Jodevea leans forward, bringing something out -- a coal, glowing a friendly orange in the almost utter darkness. She picks up a handful of leaves and puts them on the dead fire, then pushes the coal underneath them and starts blowing on them.

One single flame, dancing in the dark.

Jodevea looks up at the sky. 'Thank you, Mother,' she says. Everyone murmurs their own thanks and then adds a handful of leaves or a bundle of twigs to the new fire. Davoud and another man bring over two bigger pieces of wood and place them either side of the fire. They begin to blacken and char. Soon the fire is blazing almost as hugely as before.

The children join their elders around the fire, Aviva still attached to Rimmer, Juni tugging on Kochanski's dress until Kochanski picks her up.

'Cake?'

Jodevea laughs, reduced from being Leader to just being in charge. 'Yes, Juni, we can have cake now.' She nods towards the musicians, who have struck up the same dance tune that was playing when Kochanski and Rimmer first arrived. There is a table not far from them with an array of mismatched cups and plates, jugs of what turns out to be fruit juice (although exactly what fruit, Kochanski isn't sure), and of course the cake that Juni reaches for as soon as Kochanski puts her down. The company settle on the ground with their plates and cups, and even the musicians put their instruments down to eat, at Jodevea's urging.

The company is gradually reduced, although Kochanski doesn't realise it until Davoud whispers something in Rimmer's ear and Rimmer, although he looks startled, gets up and goes with Davoud, disappearing into the forest. Jodevea catches the look on Kochanski's face and smiles.

'The moon gets into everyone's blood.'

Kochanski can imagine it does, but it's not getting into hers, not tonight. She stands up, mumbling something about needing a minute's privacy, snags her (now mostly dry) clothing, and moves into the trees, retracing her steps towards _Wildfire_. All around her she can hear the sounds of various couples -- and larger groups, for all she knows -- celebrating the return of Mother Moon.

Sasha is on downtime but wakes up when Kochanski opens the entry hatch.

''Sup?'

'They're all shagging and I don't want to think about it, thank you.' Kochanski flops onto her futon. 'Why did this all have to happen in the first place?' she mutters. 'Why did it have to happen to me?'

'You got unlucky,' Sasha says.

Kochanski _does_ throw the shoe this time, only at Sasha's monitor instead of at the speaker. 'Sash, be helpful. You're a bright computer. Tell me why this happened to me.'

'Well, in a thousand million other dimensions, it didn't. Unfortunately, you were the one it _did_ happen to. There's nothing better you can do about it than what you're already doing, and lying around whining about it isn't going to change your situation. You need to take action, stick to your original plan.'

'Good plan. Unfortunately, this dimension isn't the one I want. Shayne's out there babysitting seven children and chanting to a lump of rock in the sky.'

'Come on Kris. Don't tell me you were sitting in the corner pouting. I bet you joined in.'

'Well, yeah,' Kochanski admits. 'But it felt right.'

'And don't tell me that you think it's a load of crap now that you're back in here with your technology and your... your futon, and me. Just because it's strange and different doesn't mean it's wrong.'

'Are you saying I should give it a shot, stay here for a while?'

'I'm saying don't be so ready to dismiss every version of Shayne who isn't a carbon-copy of yours. You're not going to get her back. You know that. You're only going to get an alternate version, and that version is going to be different to yours. You won't have the history, the memories, any of that. You're starting over from the beginning, and it might have to be with someone totally different.'

Kochanski is silent for a long moment. 'Well, Sash, I--'

Her sentence is cut off by a thunderous crash from outside. At first they both think it is just thunder, but then a wordless shriek, followed by someone shouting, '_Juni_!', disabuses them of this notion. Kochanski grabs her rad pistol from its hiding place in the leg of her jeans and charges back out, Sasha's cry of, 'Be careful!' trailing after her.


	15. Final Oppositions

Kochanski races through the trees, ignoring the branches that whip at her face, the roots that clutch at her feet, threatening to send her flying. The forest is filled with the sounds of panic now, people rising from all the little hidden clearings and private places and dashing towards the fire.

'Juni!'

It sounds like Kierea, and that makes sense, because Kochanski last saw her sitting with the children, most of whom were asleep. They're not asleep now, but awake, most of them crying, Aviva shrieking. Juni is missing, and out in the forest _something_ is crashing away from the fire, growls echoing between the trees.

'What happened?' Kochanski yells, skidding to a stop.

'It took her -- it came out of the trees -- God, what was it? _Juni_!' Kierea is hysterical and Jodevea grabs her, holding her flailing arms.

'What do we do?' someone else asks.

'Go after it,' Kochanski says. She dials the rad pistol's settings up a few notches. 'Bring weapons, whatever you can find -- are there guns on the _Clio_? We've got to catch it before it gets away.' She pulls a flaming branch from the fire, hoping she won't burn herself or the forest, and charges after the receding growls.

'Kristine, you can't just run like that!' Jodevea catches her easily, having paused only to snatch a branch of her own. 'We don't know what that thing is or where it's going - the forest is dangerous, there're ravines and mess everywhere - slow _down_!'

Kochanski slows to a fast jog. 'Juni's in trouble, and if whatever that thing is has picked her out for dinner, we have to catch it before it eats her. Even if it's just looking for someone to play chess with, we still need to catch it.' She's aware that she's not making complete sense, but Jodevea nods and falls back, shouting to the others. Kochanski speeds up again, thanking the Space Corps fitness program and her own self-discipline -- not to mention the complete lack of entertainment on board _Wildfire_ that spurred her to stick to her program, despite the cramped space.

She's gone maybe another hundred feet when Rimmer, hair flailing, arms pumping, clothed in his trousers and absolutely nothing else, catches up with her.

'What is it?'

'I don't know, but it's got Juni and I'm going to get it.'

'Hell, Kochanski -- can't you slow down?'

Kochanski is, of course, perfectly physically capable of slowing down. However, she has no intention of doing so. 'Have you got a weapon?'

Rimmer grunts in the negative and falls back a few steps. When he catches up again he's got a big stick in his hands, poky little twigs still bearing a few dead leaves. 'This do?'

'I guess so.' Kochanski really doesn't know what kind of weapon is going to work against this thing, because she doesn't know what it is, but most things go down with a good clout to the head, right? 'Just mind you don't hit Juni.' This last is directed to herself as well as him. The rad pistol is working its way out of her waistband and she snatches it, hanging onto it. Now she's got both hands full, nothing to bat aside the overhanging branches that thwack her in the face, patterning her cheeks with feral blood streaks. Rimmer is huffing and puffing behind her but gamely keeping up, and for the first time Kochanski realises: he's actually doing something _brave_.

When Kochanski was younger (although not really much younger), before she joined the Space Corps, she'd spent some time at the same university as her friend Erin. Before she'd thrown her Arts degree over for the Corps, she'd spent some time studying _Beowulf_. She remembers that story now as they break through the trees and almost run up against a rock face, the growling now to her left and intensifying: Grendel, the render of flesh, eater of men, but formless, undefined except as vaguely humanoid. She hopes that they're not chasing Grendel, because if it's Grendel out there, Juni is not going to last much longer.

'Where's a good old-fashioned Scandinavian hero when you need one?' she mutters.

'What?' Rimmer asks, almost tripping over his stick.

'Never mind.' Kochanski realises two things almost simultaneously. The first is that if she doesn't get a grip, she's really going to lose her mind and be useless.

The second is that the growling has stopped.

'Shit.' Without the growling and crashing of trees, she cannot locate her prey.

'What?' Rimmer asks again.

'Lost him.'

'Think.' Rimmer takes the torch from her, moves ahead a few paces, and nods towards the rock face. 'Cave?'

A dark smudge against the rock is indeed the mouth of a cave. 'Great.' Kochanski steps up to the entrance. Can she hear the dying echo of a growl, the far-off sound of footsteps? The one thing she really doesn't want to do right now is follow Grendel into his lair, and so that's exactly what she does, descending a slope smoothed by time and the weather -- they splash through a puddle or two and the dank smell of standing water rises up. Rimmer gags as his bare feet slip on who-knows-what kind of mould on the floor. The torchlight allows them to see a few feet ahead -- beyond that, it's pitch black.

'Smells down here.' Rimmer is getting his breath back, but at this point it's unclear whether that's actually beneficial.

'Yeah.' Kochanski wrinkles her nose. 'Bog of eternal stench.'

'What?'

'Never mind.' They come to a place where the tunnel splits. 'Which way did you go, Grendel?' she murmurs.

'I always heard if you keep turning left you'll always get out.'

'We're trying to get _in_.' Kochanski looks down each tunnel and immediately notices the faint wet footprints down the left-hand tunnel. Grendel has splashed through the same puddle, and if they're lucky, it'll keep them on track. 'This way.'

'Wait.' Rimmer is kneeling, picking at something. 'We can mark our path.' He's unravelling a thread from one ankle of his trousers, and wraps the end around a outcropping in the stone. 'Just in case.'

'Fair enough.' She feels less like Beowulf now than Gretel, lost in the woods. Or maybe she's chasing the Minotaur, because she definitely doesn't want to think about anyone being eaten for anyone else's dinner. 'Let's move.'

The tunnel twists and turns, always sloping downwards. There are a few more forks in the path, but they keep choosing the left-hand fork -- a couple of times by instinct, once because Grendel has sloshed through another puddle and kindly left them his footprints, good as a signpost.

Kochanski can feel something building inside her mind, an urgent need to find Juni. 'I think we need to hurry,' she says to Rimmer, who nods, more focused on the thread unravelling than anything else. He's going to be very embarrassed by the end of this journey.

Suddenly Kochanski's foot is hovering over empty space. She tries to throw herself backwards, but her forward momentum is too powerful and she tumbles forward, down, landing on a surface so smooth that she slides without any opportunity to brake. The flashes of the floor that she catches in the torchlight as the flaming branch rolls down the slope ahead of her are slick and black -- something volcanic? obsidian? -- but she's too engrossed in trying to stop her headlong tumble to be terribly fussed about the scenery. The torrent of obscenities from behind her indicates that Rimmer is in similar dire straits.

The torch stops a few feet ahead of her and Kochanski shoulder-rolls to the left to avoid landing on it. She scrambles to her knees, crawls to it and drags it out of Rimmer's path - then has to laugh when she sees the state Rimmer is in. One leg of his trousers is completely missing now, but it's all right, because at some point in his tumble the thread has snapped.

Rimmer scowls at her. 'Haven't you ever seen a mostly-naked man before?' He picks up his stick, snapping a few of the smaller twigs off its sides. 'Let's keep moving.'

Kochanski looks ahead and sees that the tunnel is starting to widen out. Water drips up ahead, and the smell of standing water disturbed is strong. Without speaking she begins walking again, her pace brisk; when she realises Rimmer is keeping up with her easily she quickens her steps. Soon they are both running again, into a wide cavern that resonates with their footsteps. Her torch casts wild shadows on the walls and in them she sees great snarling mouths, claws that aren't there but are nonetheless terrifying. She is aware that she is dangerously close to having a panic attack. But she is driven onwards by the need to find Juni and bring her back safely.

The cavern is narrowing again. The water they slosh through has been freshly disturbed, swirls of grit still settling from Grendel's passage before them. Kochanski wants to call out to Juni to reassure herself that the little girl is all right, but is afraid that if she does so Grendel will react to Juni's response and realise just how close his pursuers are. She settles for listening to the footsteps ahead, footsteps that seem to be slowing and wary, as if Grendel knows that they have come for him.

'Do you think we're getting close?' Rimmer whispers.

'Very. Keep behind me, to my right. I don't want you in my way if I try and shoot Grendel.'

'What's a Grendel?'

'Oh... bloody... that _thing_. It's a literary reference. Never mind. Just try and stay out of my way.'

'I want to attack it too.'

'We'll see what happens,' Kochanski says, meaning, _Stay out of my way or I'll zap you too._ Rimmer seems to pick up on her hidden meaning, because he stays back as the cavern - tunnel, really, it has narrowed so much -- widens out again. The torch provides most of the light, but there's some kind of luminescent moss on the walls that gives off an eerie, sickly yellow glow.

And here is Grendel.

The beast is about six feet tall, heavily muscled, hairy and naked except for a strip of cloth wound around its -- his? - waist. This is all Kochanski notices before Grendel sees her, roars a challenge, and charges straight at her, dropping Juni onto the rocky floor. The rad pistol is difficult to aim one-handed; Kochanski throws the torch straight at the oncoming beast, making it reel backwards, and then aims and fires. The rad beam is the same colour as the phosphorescence illuminating the chamber, but as it strikes Grendel's chest, appearing to splash out over the matted hair, Kochanski doesn't care what colour it is. Grendel stumbles, roaring again, and falls sideways. Juni is screaming from behind it, and Rimmer runs in to club the stricken monster, blood spraying up from its head as the stick connects.

'Dammit, Rimmer!'

Kochanski aims again, trying to avoid Rimmer, who is blocking most of her best shots. She hits Grendel's leg, and then Rimmer leaps over the fallen beast and clubs it again. There's one final growl, confused, wounded, and then silence, broken only by their breathing and Juni's terrified whimpering.

Kochanski lowers her weapon, steps towards Grendel, and then sees that Rimmer is already checking for a heartbeat. She goes to Juni instead, dropping the pistol on the floor and lifting the trembling girl into her arms. She's heavy, but Kochanski holds her close anyway.

'Sssh, Juni, it's alright now.'

'It's dead,' Rimmer announces.

'Good.' Kochanski casts a glance around the chamber, seeing nothing but stone walls and a single pallet of animal skins on the floor, surrounded by bones and scraps of wildlife Grendel was presumably too fussy to eat. Now that she's not focused on killing, she notices the low stench of death clinging to everything. 'Let's get out of here.'


	16. Final Pioneers

Kochanski walks back through the forest, Juni in her arms, her slight little-girl weight hardly a burden. Rimmer walks ahead of them, holding branches out of the way. He should look ridiculous with his trousers all unravelled, leaving him with only his shirt and boxers, but he doesn't. Kochanski is aware that there is blood on her hands and face, her whole body streaked with dirt and riddled with grazes, but the sound of voices through the forest draws her onwards, back towards the light and away from the cave.

'Kristine? Kristine!'

'Here! We're here!' Kochanski's feet are starting to hurt, but the pain is distant. 'Over here!'

Jodevea breaks through the trees to their left, stands stock-still for a moment, then dashes towards them. 'Juni! Oh, Kristine, you found her!' Her hurtling hug hits them almost too fast, and Rimmer has to step back and catch Kochanski before she can fall. Juni lets out a surprised squeak as she is almost flattened between Kochanski and Jodevea. The members of the Circle all gather around the returned trio, offering embraces and praise.

Kochanski feels ready to drop where she stands, to fall to the forest floor and curl up with her cheek on the leaf litter, to smell the soil and be at one with the earth just long enough to fall asleep. Her knees are weak. Rimmer's arms are still around her waist, holding her up, and she turns her head to rest it against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

'Looks like our heroine could do with a rest,' Jodevea says.

Rimmer's affirmative response rumbles through his chest, but Kochanski can't make out the exact words. She is lifted and carried as if she and not Juni is the found child, and the last thing she hears is Rimmer asking Sasha to open up, please.

* * *

When she wakes up she's in the tiny bedroom in _Wildfire_'s midsection, stripped down to her underwear and cocooned in three blankets. Her mouth is dry and tastes revolting, but other than that everything is fine, except for the collection of bruises and scabs scattered all over her body. The limited spray of water in the shower freshens her up somewhat; brushing her teeth works wonders; fresh clothing, and she's as blissful as can be. Rimmer is out there somewhere with the others -- she can hear them all calling to each other, laughing, although she can't hear any of the words.

'How long was I out, Sasha?'

Sasha grins at her from the monitor. 'Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. Bloody hours, it's midafternoon out there. Rimmer brought you back and settled you down. You were already out of it.'

'Was he the one who took my clothes off?'

'And washed them too. Never thought of any of the Aces as the domestic type, to be honest. Most of them prefer rumpling the bedsheets to ironing them.'

Kochanski has a brief mental image of Rimmer wearing only the stupid blond wig and nothing else, and shakes her head to clear it.

'What?' Sasha raises an eyebrow.

'Nothing,' Kochanski says, and goes down the landing ramp, stretching her limbs and enjoying the warm sunshine on her face. God, how long has it been since she saw real sunlight? Planet leave, over three million years ago? The lessened sunlight that reaches the outer planets and their moons hardly counts, augmented as it is by artificial light. Everything here is so much more real than the genemod plants of the botanical gardens on _Red Dwarf_, optimised to live with less sunlight and water than normal plants. She wishes Shayne could see it: the greenness of the leaves, the rich brown of the earth, the pure cerulean blue of the sky.

_Shayne_.

_Don't cry_, Kochanski tells herself, quickening her pace. She comes out of the trees, into the clearing, into the light.

* * *

They celebrate her, these wild witches and wizards, these last pioneers into the deepest reaches of space. There's crazy dancing, first Aviva whirling her in a circle and then Jodevea getting between them, twirling, moving freely to the sound of the music, unconstrained by steps such as waltz or tango or minuet. A circle around the ashes of last night's fire, where a new flame is kindled and leaps up, up, reaching for the sky, like the hands of the dancers. A cup, metal and stamped with the JMC logo and incongruous in this outdoor setting, is passed from person to person. Kochanski tastes the contents: alcohol, although exactly what, she can't say.

Rimmer is on the other side of the fire, and he's dressed again. Sort of. _Wildfire_'s a little short on wardrobe space; the trousers he wears are evidently borrowed from one of their new friends. Belted with what looks like a piece of rope, they are a funny shade of grey and it's not until Kochanski gets closer that she realises they have been cut from one of the JMC's horrid standard-issue blankets. Like everyone else he's barefoot, and like the other men he's also bare from the waist up. His body is paler than theirs, and it looks like he's been out here for a while, judging by the pinkness spreading across his back.

'Rimmer, you're burning. Sunburning,' Kochanski amends.

He twists around, trying to see his own back. 'Smeg. Wonder if this lot have sunscreen?'

'I think it's a bit late for that.' Juni is trying to ascend Kochanski's leg and Kochanski picks the little girl up, settling her absently on her hip. 'You should've known that running around like that'd get you burnt.'

Rimmer gestures to the other men. '_They're_ not burnt.'

'They haven't spent the last God-knows-how-long stuck in a spaceship,' Kochanski points out. 'Go ask Jodevea if there's something to put on your back.'

Rimmer sulkily shuffles around the fire to Jodevea, who is taking a temporary break from dancing to talk to Kierea. Both of them wince when he turns around and exhibits his back, and Jodevea gestures downbeach towards the _Clio_. Rimmer comes back over to Kochanski.

'She said there's aloe vera in the ship's medibay.'

'So go and put some on.'

He wriggles, looking charmingly uncomfortable. 'Can't really reach my own back.'

Kochanski sighs and puts Juni down and goes with him.

* * *

The medibay looks less disused than the rest of the ship. Kochanski supposes it's because that while living quarters can be easily improvised, sterile bandages and medicinal alcohol are less easy to whip up out of vines and sticks. She searches the cupboards for aloe vera while Rimmer sprawls facedown on one of the beds, groaning with pleasure.

'Real sheets.'

'We have real sheets on _Wildfire_.'

'_Clean_ real sheets.'

Kochanski can't remember the last time she did any cleaning on board _Wildfire_ and decides not to protest. She finds the aloe vera cream and squirts some into the palm of her hand from the pump-pack. 'Stay still while I rub this in.'

Rimmer winces when she touches his skin, sleeking her greasy hands over his back, working from his shoulders down, and then shivers when she squirts more cream straight onto his skin. 'Ye gods, that's _cold_.'

'Your own fault,' Kochanski says absently. She's been saying the same thing her whole life, from using it as part of her reason for sending Tim hate mail to telling her brother Moose off that time he got into a brawl over who caught the garter at a family friend's wedding and sprained his wrist. Kochanski is infinitely patient with those who deserve it, but when it comes to idiots who get themselves into stupid situations, her patience lasts just long enough for her to get into position to bite their heads off.

'I suppose,' Rimmer mumbles into the pillow. 'I should've worn a shirt.'

'Didn't your mother ever teach you to slip, slop and slap?'

'She was big on 'slap', but not much else.'

Kochanski's hands pause on Rimmer's lower back. 'I'm sorry, Rimmer.'

'Don't worry about it. She's been dead for years. Besides--' his voice changes to Ace briefly '--I'm Ace Rimmer, saviour of the multiverse and bedder of beautiful women. I'm not a Mummy's boy.'

'Any more.'

'Um.'

'I don't think it matters much, does it? Did you burn your chest as well?'

'It's sore.'

Kochanski pokes his side. 'Roll over then.'

Rimmer hesitates for a moment; when he does roll over, Kochanski can see why. Her hands, resting on his stomach, are inches away from the interesting bulge in his blanket-trousers. He at least has the good grace to blush -- or is that just more sunburn? She hands him the bottle of aloe vera. 'Here. You can take care of the rest yourself.' She backs off two steps and then turns and scuttles out, her own cheeks beginning to flame as she leaves the room.

* * *

Jodevea spots her facial expression as soon as Kochanski rejoins the group around the fire. 'Kristine, are you all right? Did something happen?'

'No, nothing happened. I just... he... um.' Kochanski covers her embarrassment by picking Juni up. The little girl likes snuggling into Kochanski's arms, and Kochanski likes holding her.

'You're a beautiful woman and he reacted to it?' Kierea suggests.

'More or less,' Kochanski says, thinking _going by that _tent_, probably _more_ rather than less_. 'No big deal.'

'We're thinking of making a bit of an expedition now that that creature is dead,' Jodevea says. 'Just to reconnoitre, to see more of what's beyond the mountains. It's not as if we haven't tried before,' she adds, 'but every time we sent a party into the mountains, that _thing_ kept eating people, and we haven't enough people to make that sort of sacrifice habitual.'

'Not to mention that every human life is precious and shouldn't be needlessly put at risk,' says Kierea, looking prim; a funny expression on the face of anyone who is _anything_ like Shayne, let alone her double. 'But now that the threat is gone, we should be able to cross the mountains.'

'How long do you think it will take?' Kochanski asks.

Jodevea shrugs. 'We've seen very little of this land beyond our own territory. It could be a week, it could be a month, who knows? Are you interested in joining us?'

Kochanski thinks about it. She's been searching, jumping from dimension to dimension, for almost five months now, and a break would be nice... but if they get stuck in the mountains, it's not exactly going to help her on her quest... on the other hand, she and Rimmer have both been welcomed here, and they could both use some time out from space travel.

'If Rimmer agrees, I guess the answer is yes,' she says eventually.

'Great! Your survival skills will help a lot,' Jodevea says.

'Um, I'm not sure that they're _that_ wonderful.'

'You've survived a lot more than you think,' Kierea chips in, tucking a leaf into the book she's reading and closing it. Kochanski isn't exactly surprised to see that it's a leather-bound, much-read copy of the Bible. 'Don't put yourself down.'

Juni wriggles to get down again and Kochanski lets her gently down onto the ground. 'What should I bring with me?'

'We don't know what we're up against. A few changes of clothes... emergency food supplies, although we're pretty sure we'll be able to find food... whatever you think is necessary,' Jodevea says.

Armed with this not-very-helpful list, Kochanski heads back to _Wildfire_ to pack.


	17. Final Questions

'Influenza.'

'Blue lace agate, ruby, smoky quartz.'

'Good... what about if you were defending against nightmares?'

'Amethyst, Herkimer diamond, howlite.'

Kochanski, snuggled into her sleeping bag, listens to Jodevea quizzing one of the girls, Laurel, on the uses for various crystals. While the _Clio_ crew are what Kochanski would call 'realistic' most of the time, this crystal stuff sounds like a load of nonsensical rubbish. How can coloured stones do anything for your health?

'And remembering dreams?'

'Herkimer diamond, kyanite...'

'And?'

'Quartz?' Laurel offers.

Jodevea rolls her eyes in Kochanski's general direction. 'You need to remember that quartz isn't always the best crystal for everything, not if you can specialise. Howlite again.'

'Sounds like howlite's good if you need a good night's sleep,' Kochanski says.

'You're right about that, Krissie. Although I don't think Arnold needs any encouragement.' Bundled in his sleeping bag, Rimmer is already snoring a few yards from them. Laurel yawns, and Jodevea sends her off to bed. 'Are _you_ having trouble sleeping?'

Kochanski hesitates. 'I...'

Jodevea tosses something at her. Kochanski manages to catch it without fumbling. It's a small stone, cubic, white, rather resembling a sugar cube. 'That's howlite. Just hang onto it if you're having trouble sleeping.' Kochanski's scepticism must show on her face, because Jodevea adds, 'Trust me on this one, okay? It's worth a shot, right?'

'Mmmm.' Kochanski is noncommittal and too sleepy to argue. She wriggles further down in her sleeping bag -- a JMC standard issue squashy thing that looks warm and is actually freezing unless shared with someone -- and closes her eyes.

* * *

'Krissie? Are ya awake?'

Kochanski opens one eye to see Shayne leaning over her, russet hair obscuring one eye. 'I'm awake.'

'Get up then. This is important.'

Kochanski rolls out of the bunk and puts on the t-shirt and jeans that Shayne offers her, slipping her feet into battered old sneakers, lacing them tight -- they're a size too big and sometimes they fall off. Replenishing their supplies from random derelicts means that they can't be too fussy about things like size, or brand names, or colour. She follows Shayne out of their room.

Somehow instead of being on _Starbug_ they're on the _Dwarf_. They walk amongst people who don't notice them, people who are dashing from place to place without any sense of purpose. As they pass through one doorway a whirlwind of paper surrounds them. Kochanski catches one of the papers; it's a Tarot card, but it's blank. She asks Shayne where they're going and gets no answer. After a few minutes, she lets the card go.

This isn't real, it can't be real, but despite the surreal nature of their surroundings, Kochanski doesn't feel like she's dreaming. They step into an elevator that whisks them up several floors, then walk through a corridor plastered with photos of Shayne, photos that Kochanski knows aren't ones that were ever snapped by a real camera, especially not the ones in the bath. Shayne hasn't said anything since they left the sleeping quarters. Head down, she moves through the world like a hologram that can touch only itself, determined, purposeful, but not really real.

The stairs clang under their feet as they climb up to the Observation Dome. One hundred and thirty-eight stairs with no noise other than their footsteps. The ship has gone quiet. They reach the top and stand looking out at the universe.

'Look,' says Shayne.

'I _am_ looking,' Kochanski says.

The world spirals. Everything contracts. The whole universe squeezes her like a womb. She is a star amongst other stars, glowing. Shayne is to her left, floating serenely, while Kochanski burns.

'Look.'

Dilate. She is within herself. The atoms whizzing around her head are as big as the stars, as bright. Shayne is there, holding her hands out, smiling.

Kochanski goes to her.

* * *

'Kristine?'

Kochanski opens one eye to see Jodevea sitting beside her, holding out a cup of what smells like tea and tastes, when Kochanski has woken up sufficiently to drink it, like random leaves with boiling water poured over them. Whatever made humans decide to try infusing herbs? Why tea? Who came up with the idea of tea? Who thought it would be a good idea? Why is she thinking this? What else is there to think about?

She leads the way for most of the day, unerringly finding a path through the rocks, avoiding the pitfalls and apparently clear tracks that end only in sheer cliffs. The others watch her and whisper about her. There is something about Kochanski that unnerves them slightly, even Rimmer, but by nightfall they walk beside her again, putting her energy down to the clarity of the mountain air, the delicious smell of the pines, the brisk but not too cold breeze that blows behind them, blowing them along.

It's clarity all right, but not of the air: if they asked, Kochanski could tell them that.

But it's wearing off by evening. Though she remembers her dream, she no longer remembers what seemed so important about it. Space and atoms, the _Dwarf_, meaningless signs... except for Shayne. Shayne is all that means anything to her, and her single-minded pursuit of her goal is clouding her judgement once more by the time she lies down and closes her eyes.

* * *

She knows she is really awake the next time she opens her eyes, but it's still dark. The sleeping forms of the others are bundled shapes in the dark; the fire has burnt down to a few glowing embers that illuminate little. And someone is sitting beside her.

'Jodevea?'

'No.' The figure puts a hand on her forehead and a soft blue light spreads around the two of them. By it, Kochanski can see that the woman sitting with her is nobody she has ever seen before. 'My name is Alosha. I'm here to remind you of your dream and to tell you that to hold on, you have to let go.'

'What do you mean? I'm just trying to find love.' Kochanski's voice sounds weak to her ears.

'You have already found it.'

The light fades, and Alosha disappears. Kochanski is no longer certain if she is awake or not, but when she gets out of her sleeping bag in the morning and shakes it prefatory to rolling it up, a blue flower falls out of it to lie on the ground. Kochanski picks the flower up. It's not one flower but a cluster of several tiny flowers.

'Forget-me-nots,' says Jodevea when Kochanski shows her.

Either this is all a dream, or it isn't. Kochanski isn't sure any more.

* * *

Waking. Sleeping. Walking. Carrying Juni when the incline of the mountains becomes too steep for her little legs. Dreaming. Conscious. Unconscious. Each day scavenging for what food she can find along the way. Joining in with the men to throw stones when a rock tiger comes too close. The tiger goes into the cookpot. Its meat is stringy and gamy. Jodevea tells her that this is normal for carnivores.

'Herbivores season themselves with grasses and flowers,' she says. 'Carnivores are meat eating meat. You notice it the most with bears. The ones that eat honey taste better.'

'"Bear that has lived too much on other animals is not very nice, but bear that has had plenty of honey and fruit is excellent",' Kochanski says. 'I read the _Narnia_ books too.'

Jodevea smiles. 'Well, C.S. Lewis got it right. We had bear last winter. Davoud's got a coat made out of its skin.'

'It stinks,' Juni says.

'I bet it does,' says Kochanski.

Jodevea loses her smile, leans forward to look intently at Kochanski's face. 'Kristine, are you alright? You don't look as if you've slept very well.'

Kochanski doesn't say anything about not being sure whether she's slept at all. 'Who can sleep on this ground? I sleep fine.'

'It's rocky,' Juni says. 'The blankets have to be thick to make the rocks go away. Davoud let me sleep on his coat but it was smelly.'

Listening to this talk, Kochanski knows she's awake for a change. Dreams are rarely so prosaic. Besides, in a dream the shreds of meat that are stuck between her teeth would vanish when she wished them away, not remain stubbornly there, impervious to her sucking at them. She picks at them with a fingernail, jabs her gum, and tastes blood. She thinks: _I wouldn't be able to taste blood in a dream, would I?_

Part of her subconscious replies, _You can do _anything_ in dreams._

* * *

She tries to direct her dreaming that night. She wants to see Alosha again and ask the woman what she is supposed to be doing.

'It's simple,' Alosha says when Kochanski finds her, sitting away from the campsite, creating a sand mandala out of the gritty mountain dust. 'You have to wake up.'

'But I've been awake, and I don't know what I'm meant to be doing any more. I know Shayne was trying to tell me something in the dream she showed me, but I don't know what it was. I don't know where we're going. I thought I did, but I don't.'

'The journey is often much more important than the destination,' Alosha says.

Irritation flares within Kochanski. 'How can you say that? My love for Shayne is everything to me. Who are you to say that anything can be more important than it?'

'I am who I am.' Alosha scatters blue petals in two circles on her mandala. Leaning closer, Kochanski sees that it's not a random round pattern, but rather an image of Shayne's face. 'And you need to realise who you are and what you have.'

'Without Shayne, I have nothing,' Kochanski says softly.

'Should I ruin this all for you by telling you that isn't true? Who am I to shatter your illusions? You'll find your path without me to guide you, Kristine Kochanski. You will.' Alosha dusts the grit from her hands and fades from existence in an aura of blue light. It's only after she's gone that Kochanski realises she still doesn't really know who Alosha is.

But she does think she knows what Alosha has been trying to tell her.

* * *

'Kochanski. Wake up.' The voice is terse and urgent and almost unrecognisable as Rimmer's. '_Wake up_. Sasha refuses to take off until you open your eyes and brace yourself.'

Kochanski sits bolt upright. She's in the _Wildfire_ bedroom, the sheets soaked with sweat, the smell of illness in the air. 'What the hell? Where did the mountains go?'

'You never went into the mountains,' Rimmer says. 'What are you talking about?'

'Initiating override. Takeoff in ten--' Sasha sounds panicked.

'After we killed Grendel...'

'--nine--'

'...we came back here...'

'--eight--'

'...and then went to check out the mountains.' Kochanski pays no attention to Sasha's countdown. 'We were going to look and see what was on the other side.'

'--five--'

Rimmer shakes his head. 'Kochanski, you've been out of it too long.'

'--four--'

'I've been _what_? Where _is_ everyone?'

'--three--'

The lack of answer she gets from Rimmer is answer enough.

'_Rimmer_!'

'--two. One. Takeoff.' _Wildfire_ rumbles and the familiar gravitational pressure flattens Kochanski back down on her pillow, crushing her breath from her body.

When she can breathe again they're in orbit above the planet, and everything is burning.

'What _happened_?' She feels faint. She's going to faint. She sits down hastily, leaning her swimming head against the wall, feeling the residual heat in the steel, realising that the outside of _Wildfire_ is probably boiling hot. 'Rimmer, tell me.'

'After Grendel died and you got Juni back, we put you in _Wildfire_ to recover. You were very worn out, and Kierea said you had a fever, so we gave you penicillin and hopefully it will work. You've been sick for at least a week.' Rimmer looks at Sasha.

'Eight days,' Sasha confirms.

'We don't know exactly what happened, but something hit the planet yesterday. Probably another spaceship with less luck than us. The forest is dry. It went up in flames. Everyone was trying to fight it, but I came to check on you, and the flames cut me off.'

'Are they all dead?' Kochanski's throat feels dry. She can still see the reflected flames through the front shield of _Wildfire_, dancing on the polished metal consoles. 'Rimmer, are they all dead?'

'Not all.' Rimmer nods to the blankets and Kochanski realises someone is wrapped up in one of them. 'I went back when I realised the fire was unbeatable.'

'He went through the fire,' Sasha says. 'I couldn't believe my external cameras, but he did.'

'But I couldn't find anyone, except...' He nods to the blankets again, and Kochanski takes her cue and unrolls the tiny body, sooty and wet, but breathing.

Juni.


	18. Final Respites

While Kochanski is coming to terms with the unreality of her confused dreams and rubbing aloe vera on Juni's burns -- no worse than the sunburn she dreamed of treating Rimmer for, but Juni nonetheless cries when they are touched -- JayVee is crossing off another day on the calendar with a fat black texta, Liam tucked into the carrier strapped to her front. Not only is it another day closer to Kochanski's return, but it is also another day closer to Christmas, and the small ship is already beginning to fill with secrets and the smell of the plum pudding that Kryten has made and lovingly hung in the cockpit, dousing it regularly with brandy. JayVee thinks that by December twenty-fifth they will all be drunk on the fumes alone.

She's looking forward to Kochanski's return for many reasons, but one of them is purely selfish: she can't rely on the boys to babysit all the time, and she wants Krissie home to look after the babies for a while so that she can... well. It's not as if she and the Cat neglect their sex lives. But the demands of the little ones make it difficult to get in more than a little slap and tickle before tumbling exhausted into bed and sleep. Pity, really; Jayv's heard rumours that sex is supposed to be better after giving birth, for a variety of reasons, and she wants a chance to test the notion out properly.

Leah is sleeping on her stomach again. JayVee reaches down into the cot -- inadvertently trapping Liam's head between her breasts for a moment before adjusting his position -- and rolls her gently onto her back. How can she be thinking about sex when she has these two to think about? Tiny little infants, unable to take care of themselves, but part of the future of the human race nonetheless. Or the feline race. Or whatever they are. Jayv tries not to think about it too much, because even though Shayne used to joke about bestiality, the Cat is, after all, a Cat. When Liam and Leah open their mouths and cry for their teething rings, it's to show tiny little fangs, just beginning to show.

'On the other hand, bub,' she says to Liam, who blows a spit bubble at her, 'your father could be a stupid hairy gorilla descendant, couldn't he?'

'Are you talkin' about me behind my back again?' Lister asks, sticking his head through the cockpit doorway. 'D'you want me to look after those two for a while? You look knackered.'

'Thanks, Dave, but I don't think Liam's in the mood for a nap and if I'm not constantly entertaining him he...' JayVee looks down. Liam's head is lolling and his eyes fluttering closed. 'On the other hand...'

Lister comes down the cockpit steps and joins her beside the cot. 'Give 'im here.' He handles Liam with the expert ease born of months of holding the twins. 'Time for a nap?' Liam's head nestles against Lister's grubby T-shirt shoulder. Lister starts humming; after a moment JayVee recognises a Rasta-Billy-Skank song. God only knows why, but Lister's singing actually _soothes_ the babies. Liam's asleep within moments and Lister tucks him into the cot beside his sister.

'You'd make a great father.'

'Rimmer doesn't have a womb.'

'Yuck.'

Jayv leaves him to watch over the dozing duo and goes upstairs, bound for a nap, if she's lucky.

* * *

She's luckier. Their room is dark -- it stays dark most of the time, given that the babies are usually asleep in there -- and as the door slides closed behind her JayVee voice-accesses the lights. Her breath catches in her throat, and suddenly the incipient drowsiness that has been sneaking up on her for, oh, say, since the twins were born, dissipates like water down a drain.

The Cat is waiting for her, a Grecian sculpture splayed perfectly nude on their bed, every muscle perfectly toned, his smile perfectly seductive and -- of course -- his penis perfectly erect.

'You're lucky Kryten didn't come up here to ask you if you had any laundry needing doing,' she manages to say.

'Baby, the only thing that needs doing in here is me... and you.' He swings to his feet, the very picture of supple grace, and pounces. She's backed up against the door before she can react, his mouth nuzzling at her neck, teeth nipping not-so-lightly at her skin. She is wearing a skirt and shirt and is barefoot, but all the same feels horribly overdressed. The Cat quickly remedies that for her, however, sending buttons flying as he yanks the shirt open, dispensing with her horrid beige maternity bra in similar fashion. Her arms are pinned down as he tugs the shirt not quite all the way off, tangling her in her clothing. Her hair is in her face and she blows at the strands futilely, trying to stop them from tickling her nose, and then his mouth is all over her breasts and she wonders why the hell she cares about her fucking hair at a moment like this. With the babies still nursing her breasts are constantly on call, but she always feels differently about the Cat's lips and tongue and teeth tugging at her flesh. She gets a mummy-sense from the twins suckling; here there's no mummy-sense, just pure, unadulterated lust.

'Cat,' she gasps, as always feeling the weird little twinge that goes through her mind, uttering that word to her lover. She disentangles her hands from the clinging fabric and drops it to the floor, then pushes at him; he hisses at her and grabs her wrists, spinning her across the room to the bed and draping himself atop her, reaching for the strips of satin they keep by the bed. A few deft knots and the use of the conveniently placed rail (she's _certain_ the JMC interior decorators had just this sort of scenario in mind when designing the sleeping quarters), and she's bound there, still frustratingly clothed in her skirt and G-string.

He looms over her, leering.

'Pervert,' she says.

'You love it.'

'True.'

The Cat settles down to the time-honoured process of tormenting her as thoroughly as possible. His tongue and lips and teeth and hands all come into play: at one point she almost breaks and screams at him to get on with it, but part of the fun is not breaking, not showing her desperation. Finally, when she's sweaty and hot and wet in other ways as well, he pins her down with his whole body and thrusts into her, and she bites right into her lip to keep from screaming. He's learned a hell of a lot in the time he's been with her, trained up from virginal innocent to damn near perfect lover, although somewhere around her third orgasm JayVee forgets all about this and starts thinking he must've been born perfect.

_Take that, Rimmer, _she thinks vaguely as she gives up on biting her lip and starts screaming. _I don't care if you're trying to sleep, we owe you for that 'Harpoon me!' comment the other night. Stupid fucking thin walls..._

And then she gives up on thinking as well and just comes in synch with the Cat, both of them howling to that very special deity, the God of Orgasms, to whom even the atheists cry.

* * *

Rimmer hears the thump as the Cat pins JayVee up against the door and, sighing, gets up and goes downstairs. In close quarters like this, it's difficult to avoid the sounds of his shipmates making love -- or whatever one's meant to call the howling, screaming, passionate fuck-orgy the Cat and JayVee engage in, since howling, screaming, passionate fuck-orgy is a bit of a mouthful, so to speak -- but at least they're enjoying themselves. It's not like at home on Io before he divorced the family and left, listening to his mother and father through the wall, hearing his mother -- 'Not tonight, _please_' -- and then her low sobbing afterwards, almost but not quite drowned out by his father's snores.

Lister is meant to be in the cockpit looking out for space hazards, but instead is lying on the scanner table, head hanging over the edge, looking into the twins' cot. As he comes down the stairs, Rimmer can hear Lister singing in his slightly off-key but heartfelt voice. Lister clearly hasn't heard him, judging by the way he jumps when Rimmer puts a hand on the back of his thigh.

'Shit! Rimmer! I thought you were sleeping.'

'Cat and Jayv aren't,' Rimmer explains.

'Ah. Still, at least they're having fun, eh?'

'Mmmm.' Rimmer rubs his hand over Lister's thigh. There's a hint of muscle underneath the fat -- more than a hint. Actually, a _lot_ more than a hint. Forget Atkins and Pilates -- curry and sex has left Lister with a quite acceptable body. 'Where's Kryten?'

'Doing the laundry. He seems to spend a lot of time in there since we got that new washing machine.'

'I hope he's not just seeing it for its spin cycle.'

'Yuck,' says Lister, rolling over. Rimmer's hand rubs across the front of his thigh. 'Now look what you've done.'

Rimmer looks. Rimmer smiles. Rimmer takes Lister's hand and leads him to the cockpit, locking the door behind them.

'What about the twins?'

'We'll hear them if they cry.'

* * *

Kryten pokes the thing again. It keeps trying to bite the end of the stick. Finally he gives up and hits it over the head. Upon closer inspection, it's just another space weevil -- into the Waste Disposal Unit it goes. They've plenty of food, thanks to the last derelict, and the last resort of weevil is unnecessary at present. He's planned a nice spaghetti bolognese for tonight's dinner, and there's even garlic bread to go with it -- if they're lucky the butter inside hasn't gone rancid.

He isn't stupid. He can hear the Cat and JayVee upstairs, and for that matter he can hear Lister and Rimmer in the cockpit as well. What he can't hear as yet is any sign of distress from either of the twins, and as long as he can't hear that, he can stay here in their makeshift laundry and keep ironing.

He reaches out a hand to the ironing basket and withdraws the next item. Somehow one of Kochanski's shirts has been neglected in the bottom of the basket for months. Kryten smooths it over the board, spritzes it with Preen, and is glad he doesn't have tear ducts. When he first met her he never thought he'd be saddened by her absence, but now, just like everyone else on the ship, he wants her to come home. The atmosphere is wrong with her gone. Apart from her being the only properly trained, competent crew member, it's her personality that's missing -- although she gets moody and emotional and throws tearful tantrums when she's PMSing, she's still the stable, logical one, the backbone of the crew.

Kryten is almost glad when the new washing machine starts electronically burbling just before a gout of water spews out of the front. It gives him something else to think about.


	19. Final Salvations

'We can't keep her with us,' Kochanski says after glancing at Juni yet again to make certain that she is asleep, although the sedative the little girl has been injected with is guaranteed to last another six hours at least. 'Jumping from place to place... I've still got six months left to search for Shayne before I've got to go back home, and what sort of life is that for a four-year-old?'

Rimmer is sitting in the pilot's seat, looking through the windshield at the dull red glow covering most of the forest. 'I don't think anyone else survived,' he says. 'So you can't exactly leave her here.'

'I had no intention of just leaving her here,' Kochanski snaps. 'What do you think I am?'

Rimmer gives her a measured look. 'I think,' he says, 'that you've become far too consumed by your quest to be the one to judge what's right here.'

'So do you think I should cut my quest short? Leave off my search and go home and take Juni with me?'

'It's worth considering, isn't it? Like it or not, you're her guardian now, and you're all she's got. If you aren't going to be a mother to her, who is?' Rimmer's fingers twitch around the electronic pen he holds, one of the many devices that the _Wildfire_ contains that don't usually appear on the JMC ship manifests. Kochanski focuses on the tip of the pen, a glowing light, and doesn't answer his question.

'Careful where you point that thing.'

'I know what I'm doing.'

'You don't. If you--'

Kochanski's next words are lost in a haze of speed and light.

* * *

When she comes around vomit is dripping off one of the consoles onto her face. There's something sticky and wet making its way down the side of her neck, which proves to be blood from the gash on her temple. Rimmer is out cold in the pilot's chair, but a massive bruise on his forehead suggests he hasn't stayed there the whole time.

'Sasha, what the hell happened?'

'The pen activated the emergency jump override.' Sasha looks sheepish. 'I'm sorry Kris. I'm programmed to obey the override, and I was sort of monitoring Juni and didn't realise it was an accidental activation.'

Kochanski struggles to her feet, head pounding, trying to ignore the abject glop in her hair. 'Is Juni alright?'

'She is. It was lucky you thought to strap her to the floor in case of an emergency.' Sasha still looks sheepish, and Kochanski can tell she's about to apologise again.

'Yeah, well, when I did that I didn't think there was actually going to be an emergency. Just find the nearest S3 planet. We need to clean up.' Kochanski hurries through to the midsection. Juni is still asleep; Kochanski tucks her blanket back around her before ducking into the shower. As always, it's ridiculously cramped, but the jets of water shoot the mess out of her hair and off her face. Her clothes are ruined. She pulls them off and ducks quickly into the midsection, looking for something dry. She's just wrapping a towel around herself when she hears a sharp intake of breath from the crawlspace into the cockpit.

_Great_.

Rimmer is awake, swaying slightly, but staring straight at her. A blush creeps up from his neck, over his chin, right up to his hairline.

'Um...'

'Go shower. You've got vomit on you,' Kochanski says, throwing another towel at him and retreating into the storeroom at the very back of the ship. There are clean clothes here and she dresses quickly, pulling her wet hair back into a ponytail, then taking a couple of deep breaths before grabbing a bucket and a handful of cloths and shuffling back into the midsection. Everything is so _cramped_. Rimmer is still in the shower. She bangs on the wall beside the shower curtain. 'Don't use all the water, we've got a mess to clean up.' She leaves the bucket beside the shower curtain and knee-walks back into the cockpit. As if two people on the ship weren't bad enough, now they have three. The ship isn't big enough for _one_.

He comes into the cockpit a few moments later, towel around his waist, pushing the full bucket ahead of him. Kochanski is already dabbing at the vomit on the console.

'Kochanski.'

'What?'

'I've seen you naked before, you know. Or nearly. After Grendel.'

'Right.' Kochanski shakes her head and takes the water, resuming her scrubbing. 'Thanks for the water.' It's as close as either of them are going to get to apologising. Rimmer shuffles back out, presumably to get dressed. 'Sasha, any luck on the S3 planet front?'

'Nyetski on the planets, but I have a Space Corps class D seeding ship on the scanner-scope, about two thousand klicks due east.'

'Any water planets in the vicinity?' Kochanski asks automatically, trying not to remember the Despair Squid and failing.

Sasha gives her an odd look. 'No, Kris. Just the ship and a bunch of stars. You want to dock, check it out?'

'It's our best shot at stocking up on supplies... unless anyone particularly fancies drinking urine recyc for the next six months.' Kochanski finishes cleaning and drops the cloths in the bucket.

Sasha makes a face. 'I don't even have tastebuds and the idea revolts me. Taking 'er in.' The ship banks imperceptibly and starts towards a green light in the distance.

Kochanski takes the bucket back into the midsection and pours its contents down the drain, from which strange whirring noises emanate. Kochanski can only assume they have something to do with the recycling process. One thing's for sure -- she's not drinking the end result, regardless of how desperate she gets. If she can replace it from the seeding ship, then she will. If not, she'll just have to die of dehydration.

Rimmer is dressed when she turns back around, _thank_ _God_. She tells him about the seeding ship and he flinches.

'There isn't a water planet in the vicinity, is there?'

'No, Rimmer, no Despair Squid.'

'You encountered it too?'

'I spent an hour convinced that I was sleeping with Captain Hollister and that was the only way I was able to gain officerhood,' Kochanski says. 'It's not the sort of thing I prefer to daydream about.'

'All the same, we'd better go in armed,' Rimmer says. 'Sasha, any life signs?'

'Can't tell. There aren't any abnormal heat signatures, but you know as well as I do that that doesn't necessarily mean anything.' There's a slight bump as the ship makes contact. 'Touchdown. I've sent a request to their computer to seal the landing bay, so you won't need to suit up.'

Rimmer crosses the midsection and opens a locker near the cockpit entrance, pulling out a Kevlar jacket. He throws it to Kochanski.

'Is there only one?' Kochanski asks.

'You wear it.' He offers her a grin that is probably meant to be disarmingly charming and instead looks like he's got a harmonica wedged in his mouth.

'Why don't _you_ wear it?'

'Because...'

'I have five years of training in judo _and_ jujitsu,' Kochanski says, throwing the jacket back. '_You_ wear it.'

'Martial arts aren't going to save you from a bazookoid round,' Rimmer says.

'And being a prat is? Just fucking wear it, alright?' Kochanski retreats to the storeroom and digs around noisily for a few minutes, not really looking for anything in particular but just wanting to let off some steam, and is surprised when she finds another bullet-proof jacket. Of course, they're not really a match for the blazing rounds a bazookoid can fire, but they're something to serve as a flimsy shield.

Rimmer raises an eyebrow at her when she comes back out. 'I didn't know you had your own jacket.'

'Neither did I,' Kochanski mutters. 'Come on, we've got supplies to gather.' She kisses Juni's forehead. 'Look after her, Sasha.'

'So now I'm a babysitter as well? Get going.'

* * *

Rimmer and Kochanski step out of the _Wildfire_ into the ship. Kochanski is instantly alert -- the lack of dust makes her suspicious as to just how abandoned this ship is. Her fingers tighten on the radiation pistol she carries. The lightweight weapons are the biggest that _Wildfire_ possesses.

'I don't like this,' Rimmer whispers.

'Sasha said no heat signatures, but... I don't see how that can be, if this place is so clean.'

They leave the landing bay for the galley. With luck they'll be able to pump water out of the holding tanks into _Wildfire's_ one tiny tank, and the water gauge in the galley will tell them if there is even water to be had.

Kochanski's senses are all on red alert, and the further signs she spots only make her even more paranoid. One wall has a splash of blood on it. It's old and brown, but there are funny smears around the edge that make her shudder.

'Someone's been licking that,' Rimmer observes.

'I _really_ don't like this,' Kochanski says.

'Should we leave?'

'We need the water... but maybe we should go back and jump again, find somewhere else to get water.' Kochanski turns, takes a few steps back, and hears a low hiss from the darkness.

* * *

She wakes in whiteness. There is a sheet and a blanket over her and it hurts to breathe; something is wrapped around her stomach and she wonders if she's been mummified without realising it. Gradually the whiteness turns into specific shapes. There are beds and cupboards and benches, and then something blue and brown, which moves and is Rimmer.

'Kris? Kochanski?' He picks up a small microphone wired into the wall and speaks into it. 'She's awake.'

'I'll be right in,' comes the response, not via the intercom, but from the doorway. Kochanski looks up, expecting another version of JayVee or Shayne, but the girl is most definitely not either of them, unless Shayne's become more voluptuous and taken to wearing her hair in a long, fluffy ponytail. 'Good to see you awake, Kochanski.'

'Where am I?' Kochanski clichés.

'On board the _Red Dwarf_, in the medi-bay.'

'Which dimension?'

Rimmer looks at the girl, who shrugs, and fields this one. 'Good question. Once I got you away from the Saurials I made an emergency jump and we ended up here. Sorry to deter you from your mission, but I thought you'd prefer having your stomach sewn up to finding your girlfriend with your intestines hanging out.'

The girl in the doorway raises her eyebrows. 'Girlfriend? Krissie won't buy _that_ one. She's practically _glued_ to Dave.'

'You know me here?'

'Sweetie, as far as I'm concerned you're down in the rec hall playing ping-pong against _him_.' The girl nods at Rimmer. 'I've told them all to stay away until you were okay. Actually, I told them to fuck off and watch anime until I said, but the semantics don't matter.' She moves into the room and yanks Kochanski's sheet down, exposing a wide white swath of bandage wrapped around her midsection. 'The blood isn't coming through. That's a good sign.'

'Who are you, anyway?' Kochanski asks, wincing.

'Captain and CMO of this ship. In a manner of speaking.' The girl pushes her hair out of her eyes and extends a hand. 'My name's Lauren. Yours is Kris, Kristine, Krissie, Kochanski or KK... or whatever inane nickname Dave has for you.'

'What do they call _me_ here?' Rimmer asks.

'Usually 'Hey, get out of the way of the TV', but then, what can you expect?' Lauren shrugs. 'I've got a pretty big crew here and they don't all fit into the rec hall.'

'How many in your crew?' Kochanski asks, thinking seven or eight.

'Um. Twenty? Or something-teen? Or maybe twenty-something, I can't count in my head very well.'

Compared to the usual crew size out here, even 'something-teen' is phenomenally huge. 'How can that be?'

'Ah... just a fluke, I guess,' Lauren says. 'People gravitate to us. It's weird, I know, but it just happened. After all, you came to us, and I sewed you back up.'

Kochanski gingerly pokes the bandage. 'Thanks for that.' A thought strikes her. 'Juni! What about Juni?'

'Relax,' says Rimmer.

'Juni's in the rec hall with the others. When I last checked they were watching _Chobits_, so she might even come out sane, if with a tendency to say 'Chii!' a lot,' Lauren says. 'You two are lucky, she's a beautiful little girl. You're good parents.'

'We're not her parents,' Kochanski and Rimmer say in unison.

'I... won't ask,' Lauren says, clearly dying to. 'I would like to know a bit more about what brought you here, though.'

Kochanski sits up against her pillows -- carefully -- and begins an abbreviated version of her story so far.


	20. Final Twists

'We were headed the other way when we got your distress call,' Lauren says. 'We've got another ship beaconing at us. But since yours was a new, active call and the other one was an autodistress beacon, we thought we'd better respond, and when Rimmer said you were, well, almost disembowelled, we decided to turn around. It's lucky you've got such a fast ship, though, or you'd be toast.' She looks at Rimmer. 'Are you meant to be Ace? You've got the ship for it.'

'It's _her_ ship,' Rimmer mutters.

'That's right, you said you were using it to look for Shayne.' Lauren shakes her head. 'I don't know why it brought you here. There's noone even vaguely similar to either Shayne or -- was it Jodie? -- on our ship.' She pauses. 'You didn't happen to see a stasis pod out there, did you?'

Rimmer goes red. 'Um... it wasn't important, was it?'

Lauren opens her mouth, then closes it again, appearing to think it over. 'No,' she says eventually. 'Why?'

'I think we rammed it when we came out of the jump. It's hard to be precise in an emergency and we hit _something_ small. I didn't really stop to look, though -- I wanted to get Kochanski to you.'

'Well, you got her here in time,' Lauren says. 'I was going to invite you to stay with us, but since you're on a mission, I'll let you go. You should come and meet my crew first.' She helps Kochanski stand up, then looks at Rimmer. 'Give us a minute, would you? We need to get this girl dressed.' Rimmer obediently disappears to wait outside, and Lauren offers Kochanski a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. 'I know you're only a size ten, but those bandages need to stay on and, if you can, put fresh ones on after your next shower.'

Kochanski peeks underneath the edge of the bandage. Aside from an ugly scab that runs from her left lower rib down to her right hip, there isn't much to see. 'Rimmer said the Saurial nearly disembowelled me!'

Lauren holds up a small device. 'Skin-sealer. It helps for small wounds. There are nanobots in it that reconstruct your skin. I thought I'd try it on your wounds -- frankly, there wasn't much else I could do.'

'It doesn't look like much,' Kochanski says, pulling the jeans on and tightening them with a belt.

'Mate, when Rimmer brought you in your insides were on the outside.'

Kochanski closes her eyes to process this. 'I'm sorry. I underestimated you.'

'Don't worry about it,' Lauren says. 'I'm just glad I could help you.'

* * *

The officers' recreation hall is full of people. Lauren introduces Kochanski and Rimmer to them all; Rimmer is particularly intrigued by his alter version's baby daughter Stella, while Kochanski looks at 'herself' and Dave and suppresses the urge to tell them just who Dave is with back in her own dimension.

'They're not staying long,' Lauren announces, 'but I thought you'd like to say hi.'

'Hi,' everyone choruses obediently.

'Buncha smartarses,' Lauren says, getting a general giggle as a response.

'Can't they stay and talk for a while?' one of the others, Danny, asks. Juni is sitting on his lap and playing with his ponytail. 'I know they've probably got somewhere else to be, but...'

'We could stay for a little while,' Kochanski says, looking at Rimmer, who is holding baby Stella and tickling her little round tummy.

'Great!' her own alter says, holding her hands out. 'I think Kryte and Gaby were planning to have dinner soon, you can at least stay for a good meal. I'm sure you're not eating properly out there.'

'Kryten I know. Who's Gaby?'

'Gabrielle, our other mechanoid,' Lauren says. 'She's a bit of a mother-hen type--'

'--unlike some we could name--' Danny interjects.

'--but she's an excellent cook.' Lauren lifts Juni off Danny's lap and looks into her eyes. 'What do you think, Juni? Is it time for tea?' Her accent is pronouncedly Venusian. Juni grabs her nose and pulls, holding up her little fist with her thumb poking between her fingers. 'Oh, doe! She's god my doze!'

'She's your Captain?' Kochanski asks Danny.

'I guess so. Some of us haven't been here as long as the others, but as far as I can tell she's doing a good job.' Danny looks at Lauren, who is trying to persuade Juni to give her nose back, and Kochanski recognises the emotion in his eyes. As Jayv would say, he's a smitten kitten. 'She certainly organised Christmas well.'

'Ignore any underlying trace of innuendo you may be hearing in Daniel's voice, luv,' Lauren says, rubbing noses with Juni, who wrinkles up her face and starts giggling. 'Can you say 'innuendo', Juni?'

'Inwendo.'

'Good _girl_!'

'Christmas?' Kochanski repeats. 'What day is it?'

'Jeez, I dunno. Ask Holly.' Danny raises his voice. 'Hol, what day is it?'

'Sixteenth of January,' Holly replies from where she has _two_ Rimmers fawning over her and Stella.

'It was the tenth of December last time I checked.' Kochanski shakes her head. 'I don't suppose I've been here over a month, have I?' She feels like there's an hourglass pouring sand into her brain.

'Not even over a _day_,' Danny says. 'Your ship only came in this morning.'

'Rimmer!' Kochanski explains the situation to him.

'All I can think of is that we managed to travel in time as well as interdimensionally,' Rimmer says. 'We've come over a month into the future.'

'I'm running out of time,' Kochanski says, but then her attention is caught by a wall display. Holly, ever helpful, has put it up; time and date in a pretty shade of blue on a black background. 'Or maybe I'm not...'

The date is indeed the sixteenth of January. However, the year is two hundred years earlier than the year Kryten has determined they are living in back home.

'_You're_ from the future,' Lauren says. 'Not us.' She sounds suitably impressed. She also sounds less nasal; Juni has presumably returned her nose. 'It's amazing what happens out here.'

'Yeah. Everything.' Rimmer hands Stella back to her mother. 'Did you say something about dinner?'

* * *

Kochanski accepts a bowl of chicken stir-fry from Gabrielle, the mechanoid with the golden body shell, but only picks at it.

''Smatter?' Lauren asks, giving her a quizzical look.

'With all of this jumping from dimension to dimension, I don't know what time it is back home any more. How am I supposed to know when my year is up if I'm spending time everywhere but in my own reality?'

'What I think is that your reality is subject to change,' Lauren says, getting the attention of a few of her crew. 'Oh, for... not you lot, okay?' She waves a fork at them. 'We're talking about reality, not theatre.'

'Theatre isn't reality?' Ashley asks.

'Hate to break it to you, but...'

'Muh.' Ashley goes back to his meal.

'You're looking for your true love. I get that part. But why? Don't you think that sometimes love only gets a little while to last and then you have to move on?'

'It wasn't _fair_!' Kochanski yells. 'She got cancer because of her shitty job and died and it wasn't _fair_!' She thumps the table, splintering her chopsticks. The others are all staring at her now. Lauren pats her hand, picks the shards of chopstick out of her palm. She has half a dozen tiny splinters, all stinging like the tears in her eyes.

* * *

After her little outburst, Lauren wants Kochanski to stay overnight and get a decent sleep, but Kochanski refuses. With time as unpredictable as it apparently is, she no longer knows how long she has to find Shayne. The whole crew troop down to Landing Bay Five to see her off, Lauren piggybacking Juni, Rimmer holding Stella.

'One thing before you go,' Lauren says. 'My little brother visited us two years ago and told us that computer personalities could be channelled into light bees. Your ship's computer -- Sasha -- can become a hologram if she wants to.' She holds out a light bee, which Rimmer takes. Kochanski is too busy thinking about the logical impossibilities.

'How can that work? Doesn't Holly still direct the ship?' Another thought strikes her. 'And besides, Holly's _human_!'

'Well, that we can't do for you,' Lauren says. 'It was some kind of freak accident. But I assure you that even in hologrammatic form, Sasha will still be able to direct the _Wildfire_. It's all to do with electrical impulses, after all.' She gives Kochanski a hug, being careful of her still-healing wound. 'Take care, okay?'

'We will,' Kochanski says. Rimmer hands Stella back over and Lauren crouches down so that Juni can climb off her back. Juni immediately goes to kiss Stella goodbye, planting a real smacker on the baby's forehead. 'Thank you so much for helping me.'

They're held up another few minutes by Juni insisting on kissing everyone goodbye; she's managed to charm everyone within the space of the afternoon. This dimension's Rimmer and Holly start whispering to each other, probably about how Stella's going to grow up and be just as cute and adorable, as if she doesn't already have those attributes.

And then it's time to leave.

Kochanski wishes she could do more than just say thank you. By all accounts, if this ship hadn't been where it is, _when_ it is, she'd be dead. But all she can do is wave and smile and carry Juni into the _Wildfire_'s midsection, strapping both her and Rimmer securely to the floor, and then go through the takeoff process that has become both familiar and contemptible.

'Sasha?'

'Yes, Krissie?'

'Find me the nearest dimension with an alternate version of JayVee in it.' She wishes they'd been able to find a way to just lock on to alternate versions of Shayne, but the computer needs a DNA sample, which they didn't have when she was leaving home. 'Let's get back on track.'

The familiar pressure of takeoff presses her into her seat, presses her tears back into her eyes until she feels as if they will explode with the weight of salt water. Luckily Rimmer and Juni can't see her face.

* * *

This dimension is familiar. Last time she was here, the alternate her was just beginning to show her pregnancy. This time, she looks ready to explode with baby.

'Welcome back, how's your quest going?' Lister asks when they're all gathered in the midsection. 'You've found another Rimmer.'

'I have.' She ruffles Juni's hair. 'And this is Juniper.'

'What a pretty name!' JayVee holds her arms out and Juni scrambles up onto her lap.

'Mummy?' She looks hopefully into JayVee's face, seeking something. 'I thought you went away.'

Kochanski opens her mouth to tell Juni that this isn't Jodevea, but Rimmer squeezes her arm lightly. JayVee is holding Juni close, and Kochanski remembers: in this dimension, Jayv lost her babies.

A child without a mother. A mother without a child. It makes sense.

'I did go away,' JayVee says, valiantly keeping the tears out of her voice, but unable to stop them dripping onto Juni's hair. 'And I thought you'd gone away too. But we're here together now, and I'm not going to go away again.'

This is the way it has to be.


	21. Final Universes

The Saurials. Rimmer entertains her with the story as they go on their way again.

'They're lizard-human hybrid GELFs, so they can mess with their body temperature and not show up on the scanner-scope, since it focuses on heat. Tricky little buggers. But they can't adjust all that fast. Once the first one knocked you down, I hit the thermostat and dialled the temperature down to freezing, then picked you up and ran.'

_Smart,_ Kochanski thinks. _Maybe he's not that inept after all._ Out loud she says, 'Thank you.'

'Any time, m'lady.' He tips an imaginary hat to her and goes to lie down on one of the futons that have long since replaced the bed; much more convenient to roll away and keep the space open. Kochanski keeps her eyes on the stars ahead. They are looking for a good place to dimension jump. The light bee Lauren gave them is sitting on one of the consoles. Sasha has declined hologrammatisation, at least for the time being.

'There isn't enough space on board for three adults,' she says. She casts a sidelong glance obviously meant to be aimed at Rimmer, although he's snoring away and doesn't notice. 'Once you've found your girlfriend and we drop you off in your dimension, I'll go ahead.'

'Will there be room for two beds, do you think?' Kochanski says, playing innocent.

Sasha winks lasciviously. Obviously whatever she has in mind doesn't involve separate beds. Kochanski shakes her head, but doesn't say anything.

'Is it safe to jump with him asleep?'

'Let's find out.'

* * *

Rimmer only rolls from one side of the midsection to the other as they make the jump; his only problem upon waking is a slight confusion as to why he isn't lying where he was when he went to sleep.

Kochanski is too busy staring out of the window at the _Starbug_ ahead of them. She has no idea why, but it looks familiar.

There's a reason for this.

She is home.

Not the home that she now calls home, of course. It's too soon for that; when they have come safely through the dimensional tear she asks Sasha for the date and Sasha tells her it's the thirteenth of December, and the year is the one she has been living in. Time is back on track, and she still has time to search. No, the dimension she is in is the one she never thought she'd see again.

_Starbug_ waits for them in obedience to their radio call. Kochanski turns the steering yoke slightly to the left and coasts into their open landing bay. Rather than go out through the midsection she presses the button to make the whole of the front shield lift up and away. Rimmer calls after her as she scrambles out.

Dave is waiting for her at the doorway through to the rest of the ship. She runs across the floor, slipping on the highly polished metal, but gathering herself and flinging her body the last yard into his arms. They go tight around her and she hears him saying her name over and over again. His smell is familiar and real and for a long moment she forgets all about Shayne.

* * *

There's a complication, though.

'You and... who? And _who_? What?' Kochanski is having serious trouble with her comprehension skills. 'You and... JayVee? And... Cat and _Rimmer_?'

The man she used to sleep with, used to think of as 'her Dave', nods. 'It all happened on Floor 13.'

'Of course,' Kochanski groans. 'That's where everything happens.'

'But Shayne's still back there,' JayVee puts in, chugging the last of a cup of coffee and grinning. 'And last I checked she was single and hating it. All you gotta do is bust her out of there.'

Kochanski looks at Rimmer, who is looking rather sick at the idea of doing anything with the Cat, although the mysterious sounds from upstairs indicate that Dave isn't just winding them up about that particular relationship. 'Fancy assisting me in a jailbreak?'

'Why not? I have no particular plans for the rest of this millennium.' Rimmer sighs and drops his head onto his arms, folded on the table.

'Do you need any more help?' JayVee offers. 'We managed to break out once, I'm sure we can break Shayne out too.'

'Why isn't she with you?' Kochanski asks.

'She wouldn't come. Said she didn't want to be a fifth wheel. She said that when the time was right she'd know it and she'd leave under her own power,' Lister says.

'Are we going?' Rimmer's voice is muffled by his arms. 'Or are we going to sit around here all night talking about it?'

'We don't have a plan.'

'What do we need a plan for? You're Kristine Kochanski, and you belong in this dimension. Put your uniform on and stroll in there, get a visitor's pass, stroll back out with Shayne attached to your hip or hidden under your shirt. The only way it could be easier is if you had Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak.' Rimmer stands up. 'You only need me to drive the getaway vehicle -- _Wildfire_.'

'Sounds like a plan,' Kochanski says.

She still feels uneasy about it, though.

'Do you need any help?' JayVee asks again. 'It sounds like you can go in and get her easily enough, but getting her out might be a problem. We could provide a distraction, if you want us to.'

'Aren't you afraid of being recaptured?'

'Nah. How would that lardbucket Hollister ever catch us? _Starbug_'s small enough to hide behind things and you may have noticed there are plenty of things to hide behind.' JayVee makes an expressive gesture; Rimmer just goes red and Kochanski wonders if he's remembering the stasis pod they hit, whoever was in it. 'We can do the spatial equivalent of poking our tongue out at the front while you sneak in the back. Easy.'

* * *

The _Dwarf_ looms up on the horizon. Rimmer is steering; Kochanski is in the storeroom brushing her hair and wondering just how she's going to bluff her way through this. There's no hope of just sneaking aboard. JayVee has told her that the _Dwarf_ is back to what passes for normal -- a full crew, including those who watch over the landing bays. The best they can hope for is to head for Landing Bay 13, which (unsurprisingly) services Floor 13, and keep their fingers crossed that it's relatively unattended. She ties her hair back in a utilitarian ponytail. It's not her usual look, but if she has to crawl through ducts or anything stupid like that on her way in or out, it'll help. She checks the radio clipped to her belt; when she turns it on she can hear Rimmer humming to himself up in the cockpit.

Crossing through the midsection, she pauses and looks at the mess of pillows and blankets on the floor. Maybe Rimmer and Sasha can clean it up once she's gone.

Then the enormity of what she's about to do hits her.

'Rimmer!'

There's a clunk as the autopilot engages and he comes out of the cockpit. 'Krissie? What's wrong?'

'What if this is all just a big mistake? I don't know if I'm doing the right thing!' Kochanski wails.

Rimmer reaches out and sort of tucks her against his chest. His arms are warm around her and the clean smell of his recently-washed shirt is reassuring. His heart beats right under her ear, rhythmic, soothing. 'I can't make this decision for you, Krissie,' he says softly, talking into her hair, but she hears it. 'You're the only person who can decide who you love and how far you're prepared to chase after them.' He strokes her back, slow sweeps of his hand that stop just above her backside. His fingers twitch a little and she wonders what he's thinking. She remembers her fever-dream about rubbing him with aloe vera. Damn her imagination. 'I'm here to help you do whatever you decide to do, but you have to decide it.'

Why does he feel so good to her? Why does he smell and sound so good? She draws back from him just a little and looks up into his eyes, and with that look sees exactly what he's thinking, seconds before he lets out a little needy sigh and kisses her. One of his hands stays on her upper back, holding her to him; the other slides down and cups her backside, and it feels annoyingly good. His tongue sweeps her lower lip, seeking entrance: she parts her lips for him and even kisses him back for half a minute.

_What the hell?_

The second she goes stiff in his arms he lets her go and takes a step back, accidentally thumping his head against one of the low-hanging sections of the roof and raising his hands to show that he isn't going to grab her again. 'It's okay Krissie. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to push you if you don't want this.'

She wonders: _How long? How long have you wanted me? How long have you been watching me sleep, watching me talk and laugh and go on about Shayne, and all the time been wanting this? How does anyone keep anything like that inside? I don't understand how people can hide their emotions... I would've cracked ages ago...._

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be sorry. I'm the one who's sorry.'

A soft sobbing sound interrupts them both and they turn to Sasha's monitor. She is in tears, and has clearly seen everything. She doesn't say anything, doesn't respond when they ask what's wrong, just keeps crying quietly and monotonously, the deep-rooted sobs of someone who has lost something she really wants.

The inter-ship radio crackles. '_Starbug_ to _Wildfire_, we're in position. Ready to go?'

'We all need to talk,' Rimmer says to Kochanski and Sasha. 'But right now we need to get you into that ship, Kochanski.' No more _Krissie_. He scrambles through into the cockpit. 'Ready,' he affirms into the microphone. Kochanski tenses herself near the midsection doorway. The first part will be hard: getting into the ship without detection. If someone notices that she has come from the outside, difficult questions will be asked. If, on the other hand, she is discovered and asked where she has come from once she has successfully entered the facility, she can always pretend she has been in the medi-bay for a long time. It happens, although not usually this long; she remembers Dave being in traction for six weeks, but that's about the longest.

It isn't until she's safely out of _Wildfire_ and passing through a guarded airlock, flashing her credentials at a bored-looking guard who probably doesn't know her from Satan, that she realises she's managed to distract herself from Rimmer's attraction to her... and her mind promptly begins racing with why all over again.

The familiar digital displays all over the Brig indicate that it's seven-thirty PM, and second shift are probably having dinner. Either Shayne will be in the dining hall or she will be back in her room... but Kochanski is sure that Shayne will be in her room. She simply cannot have come this far to try and extract Shayne from a dining hall full of hideously noisy inmates.

She sidles into the women's wing, past the guard station, which is unmanned -- or unwomanned, at any rate. The security television plays soundlessly to nobody, flashing image after image of the prison. Kochanski leans over the desk, puzzled. Camera after camera is showing the same image -- an empty corridor. The only way she can tell it's a different camera view is because of the changing numbers. What's going on? Where is everyone? Where are the guards?

Footsteps echo down the hallway from the direction of the cells. Acting purely on instinct, Kochanski goes around the desk and tucks herself into the kneehole, pushing a chair out of the way to do so. She looks up at the mirror mounted on the wall that angles down towards the cells and puts her hand over her mouth to keep from making any sound, namely a gasp of _holy fuck_ that might give her away.

Unsurprisingly, fatefully, destiny-ly, it is, of course, Kerry Shayne walking down the corridor towards her.


	22. Final Volitions

Kochanski hesitates in the kneehole of the desk, uncertain whether she should come out and speak to Shayne. From what she can see in the mirror, Shayne is not in the mood for idle chatting, probably even less in the mood to be ambushed by someone from another dimension claiming to be in love with her. Her red hair is plastered to her head with sweat. She carries what is definitely one of the guard's guns: no makeshift weapon like a bazookoid here, this is a genuine gun made for genuine killing, and Shayne's assured grip on it suggests that she knows how to use it. Dressed in the lilac jumpsuit that is standard prison wear, Shayne is nonetheless not a laughable figure. Kochanski doesn't move. All of a sudden it doesn't look like she's going to get to sit down and discuss things rationally with this Shayne. She'll just stay down and quiet until Shayne has gone past, and then get out.

The radio hooked on her belt crackles with static.

Kochanski slaps at the little device, trying to turn it off, but too late -- she can see in the mirror that Shayne has heard the noise. Seconds later Shayne has a handful of her hair and is yanking her out from underneath the desk.

'Ow!'

'Shut up,' Shayne says. She eyes Kochanski critically. 'Officer. Right.' She twists Kochanski around and shoves her. Kochanski hits the desk stomach first and lets out a surprised _ooof_ of breath. Her arms are pinned together and there's a rattle of handcuff chains, then the kiss of metal against each of her wrists. 'Try anythin' smart an' I'll ventilate ya guts.' She tugs Kochanski back to her feet and gives her a little push. 'Outta this corridor, first on the left. Ya got a lift key?'

'No.'

'Then how th' hell did ya get down here?' Shayne stops pushing her for a second.

'I came in from outside.'

'Bullshit.' Shayne starts pushing her again. They're headed for the Brig hub, where the lift is, but Kochanski knows it's useless unless they have a key. Or is that only for getting _to_ Floor 13? She doesn't know, and Shayne obviously doesn't either.

'No, I did. I came looking for you.'

'F' me? What th' hell _for_?'

Kochanski takes a deep breath. 'I'm from another dimension. I came from here first, but I live in another dimension now. In that dimension, you and I were a couple. The alternate version of you died and I'm...'

'Lookin' f' a replacement,' Shayne finishes the sentence for her. If her voice weren't so full of sceptical disdain, Kochanski would feel a twinge of pleasure. She and Shayne always used to finish each other's sentences. 'Right. I get ya.'

But they keep walking without Shayne making any further acknowledgement of Kochanski's quest. After a few more minutes Kochanski stops listening for one, and so it's a surprise when Shayne says:

'So who are ya, anyway?'

'You can't read it off my shirt?' The wisecrack is out before Kochanski can stop herself, but Shayne just laughs.

'I know ya name's Kochanski and ya a Navigation Officer, but who _are_ ya? How'd someone like ya meet someone like me?'

_What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?_

'Well... I got sent to the Brig for "abusing classified information".' Kochanski's lip curls briefly. 'Allegedly. Although it wasn't my fault, it was really Rimmer's...'

'Rimmer? He was here. He an' Jayv an' the others escaped.'

'I know. Why didn't you want to go with them?'

Shayne gestures around them with the barrel of her gun. All is silence. 'See this? I'd been plannin' f' ages t' do this. Jayv an' th' others, they didn't know, but me an' my people, we've shut the Brig down.'

And Kochanski realises. Of _course_. That's why the security cameras are down, why nobody is around, why the guard let her in so readily... naturally, if she went back that way she wouldn't get back _out_, because the guard had to be a prisoner, one of Shayne's people. The prisoners have rebelled, and given that Shayne's talking as if she is in charge, they have succeeded. How could they not, with Shayne's brilliance guiding them?

'So what now?'

Shayne shrugs; Kochanski can feel her little shoulder moving and her hand, locked around the handcuffs, lifts for a moment. 'Take over th' ship.'

'Wait a minute,' Kochanski protests. 'You're not going to kill anyone, are you?'

'Bloody hell Kochanski, what do ya think this is? We ain't goin' on a peace march.'

'You can't kill innocent people,' Kochanski says, stopping, forcing Shayne to stop too. Unless Kochanski is surprised and off-balance, she has the weight advantage. 'You can't make everyone die!'

'I'm assumin' that if ya spent any time in th' Brig, ya know Kill Crazy, right?' Shayne doesn't wait for Kochanski's affirming nod. 'He an' six others are waitin' in th' ducts outside th' Drive Room for me t' get up there an' give 'em the command t' go. An' ya bloody lucky they're waitin' instead of ignorin' me an' goin' on a rampage.' She grins. 'But Kill Crazy's thick as shit, so he's easy t' talk inta stayin' still f' a while. I told 'im I'd kill 'im myself if he did anythin' without my say-so.'

The distinctive click of a weapon's safety catch being unshipped behind them makes them both stiffen.

'And now, Miss Shayne, if you'd be so kind as to drop the gun and release your prisoner, I believe you will be acting on _my_ say-so.' Kochanski recognises Ackerman's voice, but it's all she has time to do before Shayne curses and bodily throws herself at the nearest set of doors, dragging Kochanski with her, the cuffs digging into Kochanski's wrists. They swing open and both of them stumble through into darkness. Shayne slams the door and locks it, then drags something in the darkness and pushes it against the door. The flick of a switch brings the fluorescents bursting to life. They're in the dining room, silent rows of tables and benches their only company. Shayne drags one of the tables to block the doorway. Kochanski can vaguely smell gravy and peas from the covered trays on the tables. Shayne is breathing hard, but her gaze keeps flicking down to Kochanski, who sits up but does nothing else.

'Fuckin' Ackerman! I thought he was down f' th' count!' Her voice is filled with rage. She looks at the two windows -- little, well-glazed panes of glass -- that are set into the doors, but Ackerman appears at neither of them. Shayne picks up a meal tray from the nearest table and starts smearing congealed gravy and mashed potatoes over the glass, efficiently rendering the windows opaque. Kochanski is impressed, but doesn't say so. Shayne completes the tableau by wedging another table across the doors, then turns to Kochanski.

'I don' wanna kill ya,' she says, and Kochanski knows the sincerity in her voice. 'But if it comes down ta that...'

'You're in a hostage situation now,' Kochanski says. 'How long do you think you can last?'

'I've got an officer hostage, not just another prisoner.'

'Yeah, but Shayne, I'm not an officer from this dimension. Not any more. They won't give you a Monopoly Get out of Jail Free card for me, let alone anything real. They won't care if I die, because I haven't been a part of this crew for years.'

'That's not true. They'll care.'

'Right. That's why they made such a fuss when JayVee and the others made their jailbreak. Captain Hollister doesn't care about anything except eating his doughnuts, and Ackerman doesn't care about anything except keeping his boots polished and watching women in the showers with his hidden camera. Kill Crazy isn't going to wait for your orders, he's going to go nuts, and once that killing's over, what will it matter if I die too, as long as they can get you and lynch you?' Kochanski hates the words coming out of her own mouth even more for the fact that they're probably true. All the people in the universes who care about her are a thousand dimensions away. 'On the other hand, if you give up now, you won't be a murderer and you'll just go back to your cell.'

Shayne has her hands on her hips, but the gun is still very close at hand. 'Yeah? An' what makes ya think I'm not already a murderer? 'Cause I am, an' believe me, killin' you won't make a whole lot of difference t' me.'

'That's not true.' Kochanski's arms are beginning to ache, contorted relentlessly behind her, but Shayne has given her the full play of the chain between the cuffs rather than shortening it, and she begins to squinch her body up small, slowly, hoping something will distract Shayne from her long enough to at least get her hands in front of herself. 'You killed the people you did because they hurt you, not just because you felt like it. Shayne, I _know_ you. You told me the whole story late at night, lying in bed together, and cried all over my pyjamas. I _know_ your story, and I _know_ you're not going to kill me just for the fun of it. I'd have to piss you off pretty severely to earn a bullet from you, and I don't want to do that.'

'Ya pissin' me off already.' Shayne eyes her. 'All this shit about other dimensions, other versions of _me_... it sounds like some bullshit sci-fi t' me.' She turns her head for just a second to check that her makeshift blackout screen isn't slipping off the windows. It isn't, but even Kochanski on the floor can hear that someone's moving around outside. There are nine hundred panels in the ceiling, each one square foot, and any number of them could be moveable. The doors aren't the only way into the dining hall, and both of them know it.

'It's not bullshit.' A thought strikes her. 'If we can get back to the entrance I came in, Landing Bay 13, I can prove it to you. I've got an alternate version of Rimmer down there. You only need to talk to him for a few minutes to know that he's not the Rimmer you know.'_ For one thing, he's not fucking the Cat. _'Please, Shayne. Give me a chance.'

Shayne casts a glance at the doors, then up at the ceiling, and then gestures for Kochanski to get up. 'Come on. We've gotta go to th' kitchen. It's easier t' defend.' Either she still doesn't believe Kochanski, thinks Kochanski is trying to lure her to the landing bay to be captured, or she is choosing to ignore her captive for the time being. It doesn't really matter, because Kochanski can't do anything unless Shayne agrees to it. She manages to get to her feet, dragging herself up a table leg, and lets Shayne hustle her across the wide space to the kitchens.

Since all the inmates' meals are dispensed from a food dispenser, Kochanski isn't sure why there are kitchens in the Brig, but when Shayne opens the door and pushes her through and she smells the must, she realises the room hasn't been used in years. Perhaps it used to serve the inmates, but the food dispensers, used ship-wide for inferior meals for those too busy to go to one of the classier dining halls, have been deemed sufficient for the needs of the prisoners. After all, they're barely people, are they? Just cattle, extraneous, not useful in the daily lives of the ship. Shayne turns off the dining hall lights with another switch and then closes the kitchen door behind them, locking it. She turns on a single light over one of the stoves and looks at Kochanski.

'Any ideas?'

'Why're you asking _me_ for advice?' Kochanski asks, slightly sulky: Shayne hasn't paid any attention so far, and besides, her wrists hurt.

''Cause ya in love with me, aren't ya?' She grins, and for a second, yes, Kochanski _is_ in love with her, in love with that smile that she misses so much. It's the rest of this feral version of Shayne that she isn't so sure about. 'So, whadda we do next? Howda we get outta here? They're gonna bust through that door an' it won't take a genius t' work out we came in here, so even Ackerman's gonna figure it out, an' there ain't anywhere else t' go.'

Kochanski's eyes travel the room slowly, making use of the limited light to examine everything. There aren't any more doors, not even doors to a back alley lined with garbage cans, though that would be the convenient choice in this scenario: all the food refuse that used to be produced here went straight into the Waste Disposal Unit on the wall. She looks up from the Unit, up and across, and sees what she wants directly above the line of stoves.

'There.'

'What?'

'See that darker square on the ceiling? It's the exhaust fan system. If we're lucky, it goes somewhere.' Kochanski pauses. 'You'll have to uncuff me.'

Shayne gives her a long look out of those blue eyes before going behind Kochanski and fiddling with the cuffs. She leaves the gun on the bench, but Kochanski doesn't leap for it, and the expression on Shayne's face when she realises this makes it worth it. Shayne hooks the cuffs onto her belt and puts the gun into its holster beside the cuffs.

'I'm trustin' ya,' she says flatly. 'I'm trustin' ya 'cause ya ain't from this ship an' ya got no reason t' give me up, 'cept f' ya own freedom. But ya know what I reckon? I reckon that if they find us an' ya tell 'em about bein' from another dimension or whatever, ya gonna end up in a straitjacket, an' then we're both screwed. So come on. Let's go.'


	23. Final Ways

Kochanski clangs up into the duct, groping blindly in the darkness, and finds a path to the left -- an open space that, for the time being, is the best way they can go. She hisses down to Shayne, 'Duct to the left -- it's safe,' and scrambles out of the way as Shayne climbs up onto the stove.

'Kochanski, I can't reach. Can ya help me?'

It never occurs to Kochanski to say no.

She turns around, grabs Shayne's upstretched hands, and lifts her up. Shayne is as light as Kochanski remembers, so light and petite but so strong and tough as well. The duct's metal creaks alarmingly under their combined weight, but Kochanski moves further along and it stabilises.

'Ya said ya had another version o' Rimmer waitin' in th' landin' bay. Is that th' best way t' get out?'

'Either we try that way or we go back and wait for Ackerman to break that door down,' Kochanski says, peering ahead into the grimy gloom. She can see very little, and just hopes they don't run into anything nasty like rats or spiders. She begins crawling along the duct, hoping that she is going the right way, and Shayne follows her.

'Do ya know which way t' go?'

'All I know is that this duct is taking us away from where we saw Ackerman, and roughly towards the landing bay. I saw a few holes around the bay entrance -- one of them is probably the outlet for this duct.' Kochanski blows a limp strand of hair out of her face. 'So why isn't Ackerman with all the other guards, wherever they are?'

'We got 'em at th' seven o' clock change o' shift. There're two hundred o' us an' only twenty guards total, so it was easy.' Shayne sounds confident, even though her plans surely never included fleeing Ackerman through a duct. 'I got Ackerman myself... thought he was down for the count, I hit him pretty hard.'

'I bet you did,' Kochanski says absently. They have come to a crossroads in the duct. She turns right, reasonably certain that this will lead them closer to the outside of the ship.

'Kochanski?'

'Yes?' This duct is smaller. Kochanski elbow-crawls a little way down it, searching for some kind of hint that she is going in the right direction. Sometimes they mark these ducts, mark the pieces of metal so that the construction workers can tell where to put each piece, but it is too dark for her to see if any such mark exists down here. There aren't even any tiny cracks to let in a little light from whatever room is below them.

'What's ya first name?'

Kochanski pauses. She knows Shayne's full name and the fact that Shayne will only use her last name. She knows Shayne's natural hair colour (brown) and her favourite book of the Bible (Revelation) and her favourite song (Metallica's _The Unforgiven II_). It seems incredible that Shayne is asking her what her first name is. But then she remembers that this isn't _her_ Shayne and says, 'It's Kristine.'

'An' why me?'

'What?'

'Why me?' Shayne repeats patiently. 'Why'd ya fall in love with me, even if it was another me?'

Kochanski giggles. 'Actually, you hit on me first.'

Shayne is intrigued. 'Really? What did I do?'

This is weird. Kochanski's having a discussion about how she fell in love with an alternate version of the girl she's talking to, crawling along a dusty duct in the guts of a mining ship, on the run from an alternate version of a prison officer who, as far as she can tell, is just as deranged and sarcastic in this dimension as in the one she calls home. Yet somehow it feels perfectly normal.

Everything happens on Floor 13.

She remembers Shayne's question. 'You called me an angel. And then you kissed me.'

Shayne considers this. 'Well, ya came t' rescue me from here. Ya must be some kinda guardian.' She laughs. 'Am I what ya were expectin' t' find?'

'You're Shayne, or at least another version of her. Beyond that, I didn't really know what to expect. _Quid pro quo_, Shayne.'

'Ask away.'

Kochanski isn't surprised that this version of Shayne gets the reference. _Her_ Shayne was a fiend for Thomas Harris. 'Have you ever worked in Engineering?'

'Weird question.'

'_Have_ you?'

'No. Why?'

'Just wondering,' says Kochanski. 'What's your favourite song?'

'_The Unforgiven II_. Metallica,' Shayne clarifies.

Kochanski smiles in the darkness.

* * *

About twenty minutes of wriggling along the duct on their elbows later, Kochanski and Shayne come to a grating. Kochanski can dimly see light through it and realises that, a bit further ahead, a perspex screen covers the exit to Deep Space. She rolls onto her back, with some effort, and starts pushing at the top of the duct.

'Whatcha doin'?'

'There's a grating and then Space. That's not the way we want to go.' A good punch coupled with the lousy riveting job someone did pops the panel above her head free. Kochanski can see nothing but darkness, but doesn't hit her head on anything when she pokes it through and decides this is a good start. 'I don't know where this opens to, but it's roomier than this duct.'

'Lead on,' Shayne says, giving one of her feet a little push.

It seems that whether she likes it or not -- though she's tending towards the former, as Shayne hasn't actually tried to shoot her yet -- she is taking Shayne away with her. Kochanski jack-knifes her body through the opening, attempting not to kick Shayne in the face as she folds herself into the new space, and realises that she can stand up. She stretches her hands above her head and touches only empty air. The sensation of all her muscles being freed from the tiny space is delicious. She touches her toes, splays her fingers wide, and straightens up again, listening to her bones crackle.

'Lister wouldn' be able t' get through what we just did,' Shayne says, standing up in the darkness beside her.

'Why, his claustrophobia?'

'Nah, his beer gut.'

For some reason this sets Kochanski off and she starts giggling like crazy. After a few seconds Shayne begins laughing as well, rather more controlled than Kochanski herself. When they finally stop Shayne takes charge again.

'We gotta find out where we are.' She steps on the loose panel and curses as it bongs and creaks underneath her, and shuffles slowly away from Kochanski. Kochanski moves in the opposite direction, hands outstretched, and touches a wall at the same time as her knee encounters something hard and pointed.

'_Ow_!'

'Shut up!' Shayne hisses across the blackness between them, and then, 'Ah!' She flicks a switch and the room is instantly a hundred times brighter. Kochanski yelps and covers her eyes, peeking slowly to see that she has whacked her knee on the corner of a wooden bench. There's a towel on the bench.

'Change room,' Shayne says. 'F' th' women's showers.'

'I know.' Kochanski looks around. 'We've got to get out of here before they find us.'

'Ackerman's th' only one free--'

'We don't _know_ that! Just because he's the only one we saw--'

They eye each other across the room, the silence unbearable, impenetrable, until the sound of running feet from somewhere nearby comes to them and they both lunge for the door into the shower room. The tile floor is puddled with water and Shayne skids halfway across the room before crashing to the floor. Kochanski picks her up, yanks the gun out of the holster, sees Shayne's wide-eyed expression, and throws the weapon into a corner.

'I'll get you out, but not if you're going to shoot me.'

'Ya gotta be nuts, what if they catch us? We'll need th' gun.'

'They're not going to catch us, now _move_!'

Harum-scarum they dash through the far door, into the guard station where (so far as Kochanski can remember) two of the female guards are always posted during shower time to make sure no funny business happens. The guard station is empty now, but the monitor on the desk flicks from a view of the empty shower room to Kochanski's own startled face -- she sees the camera atop the monitor and smacks it aside. 'Cameras are back on,' she tells Shayne, who nods tersely. 'We'd better move.'

They go through the door at the back of the guard station and come out in a long yellow corridor. Kochanski recognises it from when she came in -- it runs around the outside of the whole compound, and lucky lucky, there is a sign on the wall pointing the way to various parts of the Brig. _Landing Bay_ is to their right, and without discussing it both women turn and bolt that way. Shayne is smaller, but keeps up with Kochanski's long strides with ease. Another sign points them into a lift. With the doors closed behind them and no cameras eyeing them, they feel a little safer -- until the lift buttons prove to need a key to operate them.

'Shit.' Shayne smashes her little fist into the control panel, making something inside it rattle. Kochanski leans against the wall, trying to figure out the layout. She never really thought about it before, but they went up from the kitchen... and further up to the shower room... Floor 13 is badly named, with its multiple levels it's not just one floor at all.

'We have to go up to the landing bay. I came down some stairs. They had one of your people there.'

'No good. If th' cameras are back on then they've recaptured my people.' Shayne points up at the lift's roof. 'Up, ya said?'

Kochanski looks up, sees the lift maintenance manhole, and has Shayne's foot in her stirruped hands before either of them have to think about it very much. Shayne slides aside the panel and hauls herself through. Her breathing sounds very laboured.

'Are you alright?'

'Winded myself a bit in th' shower,' Shayne mutters. 'Are ya comin' with me?'

Kochanski crouches and pistons her legs upwards, firing herself up at the hole and grabbing the edge of it. She has to swing her legs a bit to keep her balance, but Shayne has hold of her arms and at least is providing a bit of weight to counter her legs, which suddenly feel like she has a sack of flour tied to each shoe. Finally she wriggles through and looks around. There's a maintenance ladder as well, going up the shaft into darkness. How nice of them to think of her when they designed this lift. She notes its position before pushing the manhole cover back into place.

'They're gonna think we turned invisible,' Shayne says with a laugh.

'Let's hope so.' The ladder's rungs are slippery with years of accumulated grease. Kochanski holds tight to each one, pauses periodically to wipe her fingers on her uniform; judging by how dusty Shayne was when they came up in the change room, the uniform is doomed anyway. She wonders why the hell she's worrying about her uniform when she's scrambling up a lift shaft away from a posse of prison guards who, if they catch her, are going to slam her in lockdown for aiding and abetting an escape...

These thoughts make the journey up the ladder pass swiftly, at least. The tiny line of light between the two lift doors becomes a ray of light and then a flood as she slowly forces them open. It's not too hard, actually. Maybe people do this all the time. She takes a long step from the ladder to the floor. Safe.

'Shayne?'

Shayne is already waiting on the ladder a few rungs down and starts up the last part. Level with the doorway, she hesitates, looking at the gap. She stretches a foot out, then draws it back.

'I can't reach.'

Kochanski holds her hands out. 'Jump.'

Shayne closes her eyes, then opens them again, bends her knees, and comes flying out of the lift shaft, crashing into Kochanski's outstretched arms and sending them both tumbling to the floor, covered in grease and dust and dirt. They lie there for a moment, each regaining her breath.

'What a _touching_ scene.'

It's Ackerman.


	24. Final Xes

X is the symbol JayVee diligently draws daily on the calendar when _Starbug_'s lights go from day-fluorescent to night-dim. X is the algebraic symbol of the unknown. She knows the day is over; what she doesn't know is where Kochanski is, or what she is doing. The calendar is ancient, for the year 2180, which is most definitely not the year they are living in. Today is ostensibly December thirteenth, which according to the calendar is a Thursday, or at least was a Thursday three million, four hundred and ten years ago. This year it could actually be a Monday, or a Saturday, or a Gruneday. She recaps the texta and puts it back on the ledge underneath the whiteboard the calendar is stuck to, and then turns back to the scanner table and dinner.

Kryten has cooked lasagna for them all, including Lister, who is eating it without complaint (although JayVee notices the shaker of cayenne pepper beside his plate). Rimmer has an interesting mark on his neck.

'Nice welt, Rimmer.'

Rimmer goes bright red. 'I, um, bit myself shaving.'

JayVee snorks into her lasagna and manages to get mozzarella stuck to her cheek. The Cat leans over from beside her and his tongue rasps lightly over her cheek, cleaning it off. JayVee wipes her face with a paper towel and turns to her other side to check on the twins. Liam is disconsolately gnawing on a rusk, while Leah is banging a tiny fist against the cot bars.

'Hey, bratlings,' she coos. 'Uncle Arnie's an idiot, isn't he? Hmmm? Can you say 'idiot', Lee-Lee?'

'Aaaa!' Leah says.

'See? Even Leah knows you're an idiot, Rimmer,' JayVee reports.

'I have to admit that the opinion of an infant doesn't hold that much sway with me,' Rimmer says, but he's smiling. After their meal, JayVee takes Leah out of the cot and carefully holds her so that her feet touch the midsection floor. Leah's feet kick and as JayVee moves her forward, Leah takes tiny steps. Rimmer picks Liam up and walks him towards his sister.

'Not long before this will be real walking,' JayVee says cheerfully. 'They should be able to walk on their own in another six months anyway. This doesn't really count. It's a reflex.'

'How do you know that?'

'I was fifteen when my little brother was born. Mum did this to him, and she says she did it for me too. They're born with the reflex to move their feet like this when you hold them up, and if you keep walking them like this it makes the reflex stronger.'

'How did your mother know?'

'She was a developmental psychologist,' JayVee says, 'and let me tell you, when you have a developmental psychologist for a mother, you damn well develop, or else.'

* * *

Once the twins are worn out and sleeping, Rimmer sets up the chessboard on the scanner table, using the salt shaker for the missing white king (JayVee has been antsy about the missing piece for three days now, but since neither of the twins have been sick and it hasn't made an appearance in either of their nappies, she's willing to admit that it may be innocently missing). The Cat is upstairs napping. Kryten is scraping solid cheese off the lasagna dish with a spatula. Lister is in the cockpit, reading the comic book version of _Lord of the Rings_ and making various sound effects to go with the action. When JayVee peeks in he has the battle of Weathertop set up with plastic figurines and is setting one of the Ringwraiths on fire with his lighter.

'Chess, Jayv?' Rimmer offers.

'Why not?' JayVee pulls an ancient pennycent out of the pocket of her denim skirt and holds it up. 'Call it for white?'

'Heads.'

JayVee flips the coin and shows him the result -- the face of the ninety-seventh Queen of Venus looks up at them, surrounded by laurel leaves. Rimmer turns the board around so he can reach the white pieces and JayVee sits down, rubbing her hands together and smirking. She wipes the smirk off her face before Rimmer looks at her, although there's not much point. They have played chess forty-nine times so far, and he has won exactly twice.

* * *

They're a few scant moves from JayVee's forty-eighth checkmate when Rimmer starts looking petulant and JayVee asks him what's wrong.

'There's nothing to _do_,' Rimmer whines, moving his bishop to take one of JayVee's pawns. 'Except play chess all day and look after the babies.'

JayVee, for whom looking after the babies is a full-time job, raises an eyebrow and takes his bishop with her queen. 'At least you don't have to work any more, right? No more sticking pipe-cleaners into chicken-soup nozzles, no more court-martialling Lister for dropping ice cubes into your trousers while you're on shift...'

'But this is _boring_,' the Prince of Whinging mutters. 'I'm not even any good at chess!' He moves his salt-shaker king out of the queen's way.

JayVee moves a knight. '_Shah mat_,' she says. 'You just need more practice. And find some more things to do. Why don't you help Kryten? Everyone seems to be perfectly happy to dump all the cleaning on him, but I'm sure you could wash your own crispy sheets once in a while.'

Rimmer looks around to make sure that Kryten is out of hearing range. 'I can't,' he hisses. 'Every time any of us go into the laundry he turns up and won't let us anywhere near the washing machine.'

'_Why_?'

'Don't know.'

JayVee shrugs. 'He lets me use the trough to soak the babies' nappies.' Disposable nappies are, of course, a waste of storage space, not to mention impossible to find -- Leah and Liam's cloth nappies are designer colours, made from Cat-suit offcuts. 'I don't know. Maybe he's afraid you'll break something.'

'I've no idea.' Rimmer looks at the board, finally registering that he's been mated, and not in the fun way. 'Bollocks.' He begins resetting the board, while JayVee gets up and goes into the cockpit.

Lister is still playing with the figurines. The Frodo-figurine is lying under a scrap of tissue, while the Sam-figurine is by its side. A complicated structure of matchsticks and paper is, presumably, meant to represent the trippy architecture of Rivendell.

'Glory and trumpets!' JayVee says. 'Where's Gandalf?'

'His pointy hat keeps falling off. I'm waiting for the glue to dry.' Lister closes his comic (even the comic-book version is as thick as a novel) and smiles at JayVee. 'Did you beat Rimmer again?'

'Naturally.' JayVee looks out of the front windshield. 'Anything interesting?'

'Nah. You want to take over for a while?'

JayVee knows better than to ask what Lister wants to do instead of steer the ship, and takes over his seat. She hears him say something to Rimmer and then the clang of the two of them going upstairs to their sleeping quarters, the rattly slide of their door closing.

* * *

Rimmer is mooching around their sleeping quarters as Lister sorts through the clean laundry pile on the table, looking for their towels. JMC towels are as blandly grey as every other accessory aboard the mining ships, but Kryten's judicious applications of bleach have rendered the _Starbug_ towels merely very off-white instead. Left to his own devices, Lister would probably reuse the same towel until it returned to grey; however, sharing a room (and a bed) with Rimmer means that there are Standards of Hygiene. These Standards include such rules as 'Lister, put that in the laundry chute _now_' and 'Lister, if you think you're eating that, think again.'

The rules never apply to Rimmer. They don't need to. The only reason his underpants ever stand up on their own is because they are so bloody starched they don't have a choice.

'Rimmer...'

'What?'

'Don't _what_ me,' Lister snaps. 'I was only going to ask if you're alright.'

'I'm fine,' Rimmer says, his right foot encountering one of Lister's socks and sending it flying across the room. 'Perfectly dandy.'

'So a nice relaxing shower followed by a massage doesn't interest you then? I suppose you'd rather go downstairs and play your fifty-first game of chess against Jayv.'

'Aren't _you_ sick of the endless repetition?' Rimmer sits down on the edge of their bunk, his right leg jiggling like mad. 'Don't you ever get tired of looking out of that cockpit window and saying, _yes, that's another star, just like all the other stars_?'

'Rimmer, we're travelling through a section of Deep Space that nobody except us has ever seen before and that nobody else will probably see ever again. We're going home to Earth. Doesn't the idea interest you even a little bit, make it all seem worthwhile?'

Rimmer is silent for a few minutes, during which Lister finds their clean towels, dumps the dirty ones down the laundry chute, and similarly replaces their pyjamas with clean white cotton boxers for himself and clean white satin boxers for Rimmer. Rumour has it that the Cat wears black satin; Lister tries not to think about it.

'I think the main thing that makes all of this worthwhile, Listy, is that even if I'm doing nothing but staring out across interminable miles and miles of bloody space, at least I'm doing it with you.'

Lister gives him a chipmunk-cheeked grin and smacks a kiss on his cheek. 'That's my Rimsy.'

'What did you say about a shower?'

'Well, it'd be a shame not to use these towels since Kryten's gone to the trouble of cleaning them for us, wouldn't it?'

X is the rating given to explicit sexual material.

* * *

Their activity can be measured in sounds: the shower running, the water sounds like rain on a tin roof until Lister and Rimmer step under the spray, and then it changes, because the sound of water hitting the human body is quite different, and there's a click when Rimmer opens the shampoo bottle and a tiny splashy thud when Lister drops the soap, and weaving through and surrounding all this is the sound of their voices, Lister complaining about his flabby stomach, Rimmer gently reprimanding him and telling him that if either of them should have low self-esteem, it's the one who keeps failing his exams.

Eventually, they stop talking. Underneath the wet sounds of the water smacking their bodies and gurgling down the drain, the softer wet sounds of kissing can be heard, if anyone were inclined to listen for them. The water stops running. Lister steps out of the shower, tucks his towel hastily around his waist, and holds Rimmer's towel in his outstretched arms. Rimmer joins him on the bathmat and Lister wraps the towel around Rimmer and starts drying him. Rimmer's eyes close as Lister dries him; he is clearly luxuriating in the sensation. The towels aren't as scratchy-new as they once were and the sound this one makes on Rimmer's skin is like very fine sandpaper being rubbed across balsa wood. Once Rimmer is dry he pulls at the tuck of Lister's towel and the towel falls to the floor.

The imagined sound Rimmer's eyes make as they admire Lister's body is like satin rubbing against cotton.

The bunk squeaks. Rimmer finds it embarrassing sometimes, since they try to be quiet, but he is quickly distracted from the squeaking this time by Lister whispering in his ear, 'Oh _God_ you feel good, Rimmer,' and anyway, as if the rest of the crew don't know what they're doing... and besides, Rimmer is too open and vulnerable and lost in the rhythm to worry about the noise the stupid bunk is making.

* * *

The Cat flumps into the co-pilot's seat. 'Why're they so _loud_?'

JayVee hasn't heard anything. 'They are?'

'I was trying to sleep, and their bunk makes too much noise.' The Cat knocks over several of Lister's _Lord of the Rings_ figurines. Legolas is now intimately entwined with Gimli. 'Why're they together, anyway? It's weird.'

'Because they love each other?' JayVee tries.

'I don't _get_ it. They used to hate each other.'

'I have no idea. Maybe it's what they say about anal sex. Two degrees warmer and ten percent tighter.'

The Cat considers this for a moment. 'I didn't wanna know that.'

JayVee grins. 'You asked.'

* * *

Despite the part of sex which Kryten describes as 'jiggling', and despite the fact that it gets slightly more frantic and messy towards the end, Lister always goes completely still when he comes except for his cock, which - Rimmer hates to admit it, even in the privacy of his own brain - _throbs_. Yeah. It's that ever-popular throbbing manhood. Sounds fucking stupid. Looks pretty fucking stupid, especially when coupled with the ridiculous facial expression Lister always pulls (not that Rimmer can see it this time, with Lister on top of him and his own face almost buried in the pillow).

Feels, on the other hand, pretty darn good.

Rimmer's has just enough time to register the feeling when, like a fire setting off a smoke detector, Lister's climax sparks his own. The sound Rimmer makes is a little less high-pitched than a smoke detector, but it has the same degree of urgency - and volume.

Lister's arms give way and he flops full-length along Rimmer, his sweaty chest pressed firmly against Rimmer's smooth back, his breathing loud in Rimmer's ear. Rimmer can't breathe very well and Lister is heavy, but it's a reassuring heaviness, and Rimmer does not make him move for some time, not until their breathing has evened out and synchronised into the slow, sated breaths of their afterglow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you do care, the thirteenth of December in 3002590 is _probably_ going to be a Monday, at least according to my less-than-Holly-standard calculations. This is, of course, using the Gregorian calendar and not any that includes the month of Geldof.


	25. Final Yuletides

'What a _touching_ scene.'

Ackerman, leering down at them, stands only a few yards away, between them and the airlock out to the landing bay. He is braced in the Space Corps approved shooting position: feet apart, making his legs form a triangle with the floor as the third side, both hands on his gun, which is aimed at Shayne's temple. At this distance, even if he misses, he's still going to hit one of them.

'This will get me promoted in time to get a date for Christmas dinner. Shayne, up. Slowly. Put your hands behind your head and face the right wall. Kochanski, you stay down and don't move.'

Kochanski doesn't waste time asking how he knows her name. As Shayne rises, Ackerman's aim stays focused on her: moving, she is the threat. Shayne steps over Kochanski's prone body, lifting her hands. The second she's clear of Kochanski, Kochanski throws herself at Ackerman's legs, tumbling fast and sideways to sweep him off his feet. He gives a strangled _yawp_ and a shot goes off, but nobody is hit. Kochanski's body weight against his shins knocks his feet from beneath him and he falls forward, another shot echoing down the passageway as he jerks the trigger by pure reflex. Shayne whirls around, stamps on his wrist, and grabs the gun out of his limp hand. Ackerman shrieks when she does it, and Kochanski thinks she hears the snap of small bones underneath that shriek.

'Aiding and abetting an escapee, plus assaulting a guard...' His voice is strained. 'You're in it up to your neck as well, Kochanski.'

'That's pretty tough talk, coming from someone with a gun pointed at his head.' Kochanski kneels beside him and unhooks his handcuffs from his belt, closing them around his wrists; the right one is at a funny angle and Ackerman shrieks again when she moves it. Kochanski tries to pad it a little with the sleeve of his shirt but it's already swelling. Too bad.

'Maybe I'm not the only one down here.'

'Maybe ya not,' Shayne agrees peaceably enough, handing Kochanski the gun. Kochanski takes it and keeps it trained on Ackerman while Shayne fishes around inside her prison garb and finally withdraws her bra. She lifts Ackerman's head and stuffs most of it into his mouth. 'But ya ain't gonna have another chance t' call them.'

They leave Ackerman flat on his face on the floor and walk the last few yards to the airlock. The guard that was here earlier is gone now; one of Shayne's people, recaptured or fled. Kochanski pushes the open button and is inwardly relieved when it opens, rather than setting off an alarm. They enter the lock, wait for the door to hiss shut behind them, and push the open button for the other door.

'Release code or key required,' Holly's voice says.

Kochanski tries the release code that she knows from the other airlocks. It doesn't work, and they don't have the key either. Just to add to the fun, when she tries to go back the way they came, thinking that Ackerman must surely have the key, that door won't open either. There's a metallic scrawping sound as an overhead camera turns to stare at them with its beady blank lens-eye. If things are returning to normal in the Brig, someone will be down here any minute to pick them up. Brilliant.

Shayne prods at the keyhole on the control panel. 'Have ya got anythin' metal and kinda pointy?'

Kochanski shakes her head. 'I don't think so.' She checks her pockets anyway: a lot of fluff, a piece of chewing gum, still in its wrapper, and the back of an earring are all that her search turns up. Then she realises she's looking so hard she's looked right beyond the obvious. 'Think shooting it out will work?'

Shayne looks at the gun and steps away from the control panel, pressing herself against the opposite wall. 'Try an' do it from as far away as ya can.'

Pressing the gun against the keyhole, Kochanski steps back to the full reach of her arm and squeezes the trigger. The sound is cataclysmic in the tiny space and both women flinch. But the locking mechanism falls apart and Shayne can take her fingers out of her ears and slide the airlock door open.

_Wildfire_'s engine is already running, a heatshimmer over the rear end and the hum of whatever motor drives it deep inside giving it away. Kochanski and Shayne hurry across the landing bay, past a silent, immobile _Blue Midget_, past the Ground Controller's empty booth, up the ramp and into _Wildfire_'s rudimentary midsection. Kochanski pushes Shayne onto the mess of mattresses and cushions on the floor, hits the door close button, and yells, '_Rimmer! Go!_' through the crawlway into the cockpit. The wall-straps are hidden under the pillows and Kochanski digs them out, harnessing Shayne to the wall before strapping herself down.

The ship powers across the landing bay and the doors open just in time for it to fly out, speeding into space, four thousand miles away within a minute.

Sasha's face appears on the midsection monitor. 'Kris, can you come up front?'

Kochanski glances at Shayne, who waves a hand as if to say _go on_, and unbuckles herself from the restraints, crawling into the cockpit and crouching beside the pilot's seat.

'Nice of you to join me,' Rimmer says.

'I'm glad you waited,' Kochanski says. 'How did you know I was coming?'

'Your radio was on _talk_. I could hear everything that happened, so I knew when you were in the airlock,' Rimmer explains, tapping the other half of the two-way radio set. Kochanski has lost her radio, presumably in the run across the landing bay.

'And you didn't come to get us out?'

'I knew you'd find a way,' Rimmer says, winking. That's when Kochanski notices that he's wearing the blond wig again.

'Well, we did... Ace.'

'Yes.' Rimmer's smile is sad. 'You've found what you were looking for and it's time to go home now, Kochanski.' He picks up the microphone for the intership radio and presses the _talk_ button. '_Wildfire_ to _Starbug_, mission accomplished.'

'_Starbug_ to _Wildfire_, message received. We're getting out of here before Captain Lardarse realises we're here and decides to put us back in the Brig. Feel free to visit any time you're in this dimension.' Lister sounds amused. 'And tell Kochanski she did a good job, but her chat-up lines leave something to be desired.'

'My what _what_?'

'Er, they could hear you as well. I had the link open between the ships so we could keep track of each other's movements. Captain Hollister hailed them at one point -- he thought the landing bay opened because they were escaping prisoners, so unless they get recaptured, we've made it.'

'Champagne on standby, _Wildfire_. _Starbug_ out.' The radio link fizzles with static and Rimmer turns the mic back off. Kochanski leans against the wall.

'So what now?'

'We get you home,' says Rimmer. 'Do you want to jump right now?'

Kochanski looks down at her tattered, dirty uniform, at her hands, smudged with oil and dust. A quick glance in the reflective metal of the console indicates that her face is in a similar condition. 'You know what? If you can keep us moving away from the _Dwarf_, Shayne and I could probably do with a shower and a rest.'

A smirk twitches the edges of Rimmer's lips. 'And get to know each other a little better?'

Kochanski can feel the blush heating up her cheeks. 'Rimmer, I just rescued her from the Brig. We're both tired and dirty. Now is not the time to discuss the reasons why I rescued her, even if the reasons I went in with are the same as the ones I came out with.'

'"Came out"... now _there's_ a turn of phrase...' Rimmer leans away when Kochanski tries to thump him. 'Go and get cleaned up. We won't make the jump until you're well and truly ready. Sound like a plan?'

'Thanks, Rimmer.'

He waves her away. 'Go on. You smell bad.'

Kochanski twists around and goes back through the crawlspace into the midsection. Shayne is slumped against the wall, her head lolled over onto her shoulder, but she's breathing normally and Kochanski doesn't need to panic. The storeroom yields up an alternative to her uniform and to Shayne's lilac prison garb; her spare clothes will be too big for Shayne, but not by too much, and at least they'll be more comfortable than the jumpsuit.

When she comes back into the midsection the autopilot message is up on the monitor and Rimmer is waiting outside the cockpit entrance. 'Radio for you,' he says.

'Who, _Starbug_?'

'No.'

Kochanski drops the bundle of clothing and crawls into the cockpit again, flopping into the pilot's seat and picking up the microphone -- the comms monitor display reads _audio only_. She thumbs the on switch. 'Kochanski.'

'Kochanski? Where the hell have you been?'

It's Hollister.

'Away,' Kochanski says warily.

'What's that supposed to mean? You disappear without warning, along with Lister, and then he reappears with some whacked-out story about nanobots and other dimensions, and all you can tell me is you've been 'away'? Turn your ship around, Kochanski. That's an order.'

'Why?'

'Why? _Why_? You're on board a ship with God only knows who piloting it that's come from God only knows where, and you have an escaped prisoner with you! Did she take you hostage and order you out there?'

'Not really, sir,' Kochanski says.

'Are you aware that she's a murderer?'

'Actually, sir, I believe she was convicted of manslaughter. I also believe that the charges laid against her were undeserved.'

Hollister splutters for a minute. Kochanski rolls her eyes at Rimmer, who is sitting in the crawlspace to listen. 'You're in violation of at least thirty Space Corps regulations! Turn your ship around!' A cajoling tone enters his voice. 'If you turn the ship around and come back, I'll reduce whatever sentence you get by half.'

'Reduce your _arse_ by half, sir,' Kochanski says. 'That's a no, by the way.' She turns the microphone off and then the comms unit. Sasha cheers. Rimmer sniggers.

'What if he follows us?'

'For one thing, it'll take him twelve days to turn the _Dwarf_ onto a suitable trajectory. For another, we're faster than the _Dwarf_ even if we're not _moving_.' Kochanski pushes her hands through her hair and rubs her face, smearing the combination of grease and dust even further. 'Out of my way. Shower needed urgently.' She squeezes past Rimmer and steps over Shayne's outstretched legs and ducks into the shower cubicle without stopping to take her mangled uniform off. The shower dispenses water in thirty-second bursts, but she pushes the button three times and even lathers her hair up with shampoo before the last spray -- the shampoo is in fact her own addition to the ship's supplies, since Ace's wig never gets naturally oily or dry.

She thinks that the fact that she can think about things like shampoo when she's on the run with a freed criminal proves that either she's right or she's insane. Possibly both. Possibly neither, too. On the other hand, she's spent many months wondering whether she's doing the right thing or whether she's just completely lost it in the wake of Shayne's death.

Still thinking, Kochanski opens the shower curtain and reaches for her towel, but her motion is arrested by an appreciative wolf-whistle. She looks up. If it's Rimmer perving on her again she's going to shred him up one side and down the other and damn the consequences.

It isn't, luckily enough; it's Shayne, who is watching her, eyes blinking and sleepy but amused.

'Looks like I picked th' right ship t' escape on.'

Kochanski restrains herself from leaping across the midsection and pouncing Shayne, and merely retrieves her towel, retreating back behind the shower curtain to dry herself and calm her racing heart. It's hard to dry herself all huddled up, but she manages it, to a degree. Then she steps back out, swathed in the towel, and picks up her clean clothes.

'I found you a change of clothes,' she says in a voice that is not quite steady. 'I'll, um, change in the storeroom while you shower, if you want.'

Shayne nods and begins unbuckling herself. 'Am I gonna fall over if I get up?'

'No, the straps are mostly for hyperjumping. Rimmer's not going to steer us through an asteroid field, are you Rimmer?'

'No,' Rimmer calls. 'You can trust me.' His voice is completely Ace, completely macho. Kochanski rolls her eyes and motions at the shower.

'The big silver button turns the water on -- it only lasts thirty seconds, but you can push it a few times. There's soap in the wall dispenser and a bottle of shampoo. Take as long as you want.'

Shayne stands up. 'Thanks.' She begins unbuttoning her shirt.

'No problem.' Kochanski flees to the storeroom, pulling the thick curtain closed behind her, lest she give into that pouncing urge that has rearisen at the sight of the slight curve of Shayne's breasts through the widening opening in her shirt.

Still, while Ackerman may not be getting his promotion in time for a Christmas dinner date, it looks like she is going to be home for Christmas... and possibly even with the best present ever.

If everything works out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the next chapter's title: a zwitterion is an ion that bears both a positive and a negative charge. As I've run out of ordinary, fitting Z words, I decided that this would do. It doesn't literally mean 'zwitterion', of course, but rather, the implication of both positive and negative things to come.


	26. Final Zwitterions

Twenty-three hours later, after Shayne and Kochanski have both slept off their jailbreak and their dimension jump has been made, they and Rimmer stand against one of the midsection walls, watching the light bee hover in midair, pixels of light swirling around it, coalescing into a human form. According to the computer, they are back in the dimension Kochanski started from; as Kochanski and Shayne are about to leave the _Wildfire_, Sasha has decided to take her promised hologrammatic body.

'How does it come up with a body for her?' Kochanski wonders.

'Computer personalities are taken from specific people. With the right programming -- which these light bees evidently have -- the body of that person can be reconstructed along with the personality. That's how they make holograms; it's just another step to do it with a computer,' Rimmer says.

'If anyone knows anything about doing it with computers, it's you,' Kochanski says sweetly.

'Look,' Shayne says, just in time to prevent Rimmer from figuring out Kochanski's meaning. The hologram has almost finished forming. A beige Space Corps uniform clothes a body a few inches taller than Kochanski's. The badge of rank reads _Computer_, with _Sasha_ on the nametag. Sasha's familiar head is just resolving into being above the uniform. Her eyes are closed and she stands straight-backed with her hands by her sides.

'Sasha?' Kochanski and Rimmer ask at the same time.

Sasha's eyes open. 'God, how do you people manage to stand up?' she asks, wobbling a little.

'You don't know how to stand up?' Kochanski puts an arm around her waist.

'I haven't really had much experience of it now, have I?' Sasha tries taking a few steps. 'Not bad.'

'Not even in the body your personality was recorded from?' Rimmer asks. 'You must have had a real body at some point.'

'As far as I'm concerned, my real body is _Wildfire_.' Sasha takes another step and bends to peer through the crawlspace into the cockpit. 'I feel like I'm in two bodies at once. I'm conscious of this body... conscious in this body... but at the same time I can feel _Wildfire_ like I always could, all the circuits and everything else.'

'Weird shit,' Shayne says.

'I guess you'll get used to it,' Kochanski says. 'Holly, on the other _Red Dwarf_, said that she did.'

'So I noticed,' Rimmer says. 'What with the baby and all.'

'It's gettin' crowded in here,' Shayne hints. 'An' I'd like t' see my new home.' She drops onto one of the mattresses and stretches out. 'How far away are we?'

'Not more than half an hour,' Sasha says. 'I programmed the jump so that we wouldn't come out of hyperspace too close to them. That can cause problems.'

'No kidding,' Rimmer mutters, evidently remembering something he refuses to reveal to the others. He and Sasha go into the cockpit, while Kochanski drags out a suitcase from the storeroom.

'So... who else is on th' ship ya takin' me to?' Shayne asks. 'Remind me.'

'This dimension's version of JayVee, Lister and the Cat, an alternate version of this dimension's Rimmer, and JayVee and the Cat's twin babies, Liam and Leah. Oh, and this dimension's version of Kryten,' Kochanski adds.

Shayne shakes her head. 'I don' know how ya keep track o' all these dimensions. I've never been t' another dimension before.'

'You're in one now,' Kochanski points out.

'Yeah, but I'm gonna have t' see it t' believe it. What's out there but more stars, an' nobody can ever tell stars apart, 'less they're astronomers.' Shayne crosses her legs at the ankle. 'I ain't sayin' I'm not grateful for ya gettin' me outta there, but I also gotta say that this is a bit fuckin' weird.'

Kochanski's skin starts to feel the way it did when their cyberschool class went on a skiing trip for physical education and they were transported to a simulated snowy paradise, the temperature in their cybercubicles dropped without warning to freezing just for a moment to show them how it felt. 'Don't... don't you want to come with me?'

Shayne sighs. 'Kris, I can see how ya feel about me, but remember, I ain't the girl ya used t' be with. I'm different. An' while I'm grateful to ya f' savin' me, that don' mean I'm gonna jump straight inta bed with ya.'

'That's not all I want, Shayne. That's not the only reason I saved you. I saved you because you needed saving, because if your plan went ahead you would have failed and probably ended up dead. Your JayVee told me that she found tapes from the women's showers in Ackerman's office one day. You were the main focus of those tapes. If you hadn't died in the attempted escape, I have the feeling Ackerman would've stepped up his interest in you.' Kochanski sits down, leaning against her suitcase. 'I didn't just save you from the Brig for your sake, but on the other hand, it wasn't just because I thought you'd make a good fuckbuddy.'

Shayne hisses between her teeth. 'Don' even _insinuate_ that. I ain't anyone's toy.'

'And I don't want you to be.' Kochanski briefly covers her face with her hands. 'I realised last night, when I was trying to get to sleep, that I've completely screwed everything up.'

'Ya what?'

'I did this all wrong,' Kochanski says. 'I should never have left home and come looking for an alternate version of my girlfriend, it was pathetic and insane. I should've accepted that she was dead and I would never find her again. All the other dimensions out there exist _because_ the people in them are different. There's no perfect copy of my Shayne waiting for me to find her. I screwed up, and I've dragged you away from your... your _revolution_, and why? Because I'm selfish and stupid.' She lowers her head and closes her eyes. 'I'm sorry, Kerry. I _have_ done this all for myself.'

A light touch on her shoulder makes her lift her head and open her eyes.

'Ya did what ya did f' whatever reasons were right at th' time,' Shayne says, kneeling beside her. 'I think ya had t' do all this, all th' dimension jumpin', t' realise what ya just told me.' She pauses. 'Ya right, there ain't a perfect copy of ya girlfriend anywhere. Ya ain't gonna find her exactly th' same. But give it time, an' ya never know what might happen.' She kisses Kochanski's forehead softly. 'Just give it time.'

'We're within sight range of _Starbug_. Open radio contact?' Sasha calls from the cockpit. Shayne pulls back from Kochanski, who sighs and gets up.

'Yes, Sash. Is there room for me in there?'

'We can make room,' Sasha says. There's an outraged yelp from her and a giggle from Rimmer as Kochanski starts into the crawlway.

'Kris?'

'Yes?'

'Don' call me Kerry.' There's a hint of a laugh in Shayne's voice, though.

* * *

Communications established, they begin the final approach to _Starbug_. From the outside the entrance to the landing bay looks tiny and Kochanski wonders how they're ever going to fit _Wildfire_ into it. The black opening grows larger as they near it, though, and the landing lights around it wink on and off like lights on a Christmas tree; fitting, since according to Sasha, it's December twenty-fifth today. Rimmer pilots _Wildfire_ expertly into the landing area, setting it down as neatly as any expert in the art of flying spaceships.

'Aren't you coming in with us?' Kochanski asks when Rimmer makes no move to unstrap himself.

'No. To be honest, I don't know if I could stand to see Dave with another version of me,' Rimmer says in his Ace voice.

Sasha shakes her head. 'Ace, you're hopeless.'

'True.' Rimmer leans over enough to kiss Kochanski's cheek in farewell. 'Good luck,' he whispers.

'Thank you for everything,' Kochanski says. She throws her arms around Sasha, as much as that's possible in the cramped space. 'Bye, Sash. Don't exhaust our hero too much.'

'I will,' Sasha says. 'Oh! I meant _I won't_, of course.' She's winking at Kochanski so much it looks like she's got a tic. Kochanski laughs and backs out of the cockpit. The sound of the engine is much louder with the midsection door open. Shayne is waiting with the suitcase, looking a little apprehensive but eager. Kochanski picks the suitcase up and gives _Wildfire_ a friendly pat goodbye.

'We'll have to hurry,' she says. 'With the bay doors open we've got to get into the main part of the ship without being sucked out by the vacuum.'

'An' here I thought you'd brought me t' a safe place,' Shayne comments wryly. She moves to the top of the landing ramp. 'Over t' th' airlock?'

'Yes. Go!' Shayne takes off at a run; Kochanski follows, dragging the suitcase with her, grateful that the air pressure has equalised somewhat and they aren't actively being sucked out into the black oblivion of space. She hears _Wildfire_'s engine whine move up an octave as she reaches the airlock and puts her hand on the wheel. Looking back, she sees Rimmer and Sasha wave out of the front shield as the ship's antigrav boosters kick in and it lifts off the floor. She never had occasion to use the reverse thrusters herself, but apparently _Wildfire_ has them, as Rimmer makes the ship perform a fancy backwards takeoff.

Shayne is yelling something over the roar of the engines.

'What?'

'Shouldn' we stop sightseein' an' get movin'?'

Kochanski spins the release wheel and they step into the airlock. Peering through the tiny window set into it, she can see _Wildfire_ disappearing out of the landing bay as the door begins to iris closed behind it. She waves, a little flutter of her fingers, and then turns to follow Shayne, who is already opening the other side of the airlock.

* * *

The first thing Kochanski notices is how much bigger the twins are. Leah is so pleased to see her that she throws up all over her and necessitates another clothing change. Kochanski's sort of happy to leave the group and go upstairs to her sleeping quarters, though; she privately wants to see if Shayne can fit in with them without assistance. The burst of laughter from downstairs just as she reaches her room seems to indicate that all is going well.

She voice-accesses her door, opening it and stepping into her room.

There's a slight sheen of dust everywhere, but it looks like Kryten's done some dusting recently. Everything is where she left it, except for the mess of clothes she remembers leaving out when she was packing to leave on _Wildfire_; they've been put back in the wardrobe. The bed is still in 'double-bed mode', as Kryten calls it, the pillows plumped, the blankets turned down and inviting. The only thing that is missing is her and Shayne in it. She hesitates a moment, then leaves the bed as it is. Shayne probably won't want to share, but one of them can take the spare single bunk that's on the opposite wall. Kochanski changes her sick-sodden shirt, rinsing milky spit out of her hair, and heads back downstairs.

She pauses halfway down just to look.

The others have gathered around the scanner table, where Kryten is dishing up Christmas dinner. JayVee is trying to persuade Liam not to throw his carrot on the floor, but Liam is intent on proving that gravity still works even in outer space. Rimmer is feeding Lister a spoonful of peas. The Cat is openly leering at JayVee's cleavage. It looks as if nothing's changed. Kochanski hurries down the last few steps and circumnavigates the table and Kryten to get to the last empty seat, which is next to Shayne. Shayne looks up and gives her a grin as Kochanski sits down.

'Th' clean look suits ya.'

'Thanks. The not-a-crazed-convict look suits _you_.'

'Ladies, gentlemen and Rimmer,' Lister says, tapping his champagne glass (which contains beer) with his fork and ignoring Rimmer's indignant glare, 'merry Christmas.'

'Merry Christmas!' everyone choruses.

'This year, Christmas presents have not been abundant, cos of the lack of derelicts with shopping malls on board,' Lister continues. 'However, I think it's fair to say that having Kris back with us is the best present we could get.'

There's a general murmur of affirmation, and an enthusiastic 'Aaaa!' from the twins.

'What I want to know, Kris,' Lister says, 'is whether you succeeded in what you set out to do.'

Kochanski looks down at her plate. 'No,' she says. 'I didn't.' She pauses, but not long enough for anyone else to interject. 'I didn't succeed, because I set out to do the impossible. I went looking for someone who didn't exist, an exact copy of the woman I loved, and there was no way I could find her without learning to resurrect the dead. But I did come home with a new member for our crew, a new friend, and a whole lot of learning.' She looks up again. Everyone is looking at her and nodding understandingly, except the twins, who are having a food fight while their mother is ignoring them -- and Shayne, who is leaning back in her chair and giving Kochanski that same steady look that Kochanski remembers means that Shayne is taking in every word she says. 'I didn't find my Shayne, but I found _a_ Shayne, and I stopped kidding myself that I'd ever be able to alter the past.'

'Well said,' JayVee says.

'Aaaa!' Liam agrees.

'An' I'm happy t' be outta th' Brig an' here with ya, Kris,' Shayne says. 'I feel like I know ya all already, an' anythin's gotta be better than havin' Ackerman perve on me in th' shower.'

'So, if we're ready to carve the turkey...' Kryten pauses.

'I think there's one last thing,' Rimmer says.

'What?' Kochanski asks, aware that everyone's looking at her again.

'Look up,' Lister says.

Kochanski looks up, slowly, not entirely certain what to expect. Dangling on a string from the ceiling, swaying slightly, and almost certainly tied there only minutes earlier, is a bunch of plastic mistletoe. She looks at Shayne, who shrugs, grins, and leans in close.

'This was Dave's idea, right?' Kochanski whispers.

'Maybe.' Shayne shrugs again. 'Like I said t' ya on _Wildfire_, ya gotta give it time.' She leans closer still, the tip of her nose brushing the tip of Kochanski's nose. 'I didn' say how _much_ time....'


End file.
